No-boundary solutions are robust to quantum gravity corrections

Abstract

The no-boundary proposal is a theory of the initial conditions of the universe formulated in semi-classical gravity, and relying on the existence of regular (complex) solutions of the equations of motion. We show by explicit computation that regular no-boundary solutions are modified, but not destroyed, upon inclusion of expected quantum gravity corrections that involve higher powers of the Riemann tensor as well as covariant derivatives thereof. We illustrate our results with examples drawn from string theory. Our findings provide a crucial self-consistency test of the no-boundary framework.Comment: 39 pages, no figure, v2: matches the published versio