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Free keywords:
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, gr-qc,High Energy Physics - Theory, hep-th,Nonlinear Sciences, Chaotic Dynamics, nlin.CD,Quantum Physics, quant-ph,
Abstract:
Close to a spacelike singularity, pure gravity and supergravity in four to
eleven spacetime dimensions admit a cosmological billiard description based on
hyperbolic Kac-Moody groups. We investigate the quantum cosmological billiards
of relativistic wavepackets towards the singularity, employing flat and
hyperbolic space descriptions for the quantum billiards. We find that the
strongly chaotic classical billiard motion of four-dimensional pure gravity
corresponds to a spreading wavepacket subject to successive redshifts and
tending to zero as the singularity is approached. We discuss the possible
implications of these results in the context of singularity resolution and
compare them with those of known semiclassical approaches. As an aside, we
obtain exact solutions for the one-dimensional relativistic quantum billiards
with moving walls.