Jackiw-Teitelboim and Kantowski-Sachs quantum cosmology

We study quantum cosmology of the 2D Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) gravity with Lambda > 0 and calculate the Hartle-Hawking (HH) wave function for this model in the minisuperspace framework. Our approach is guided by the observation that the JT dynamics can be mapped exactly onto that of the Kantowski-Sachs (KS) model describing a homogeneous universe with spatial sections of S-1 x S-2 topology. This allows us to establish a JT-KS correspondence between the wave functions of the models. We obtain the semiclassical Hartle-Hawking wave function by evaluating the path integral with appropriate boundary conditions and employing the methods of Picard-Lefschetz theory. The JT-KS connection formulas allow us to translate this result to JT gravity, define the HH wave function and obtain a probability distribution for the dilaton field.

Automated summary

We study the quantum cosmology of 2D Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity with Lambda > 0 and calculate the Hartle-Hawking wave function for this model in a minisuperspace framework. By establishing a correspondence between JT gravity and the Kantowski-Sachs model, we obtain the semiclassical Hartle-Hawking wave function and derive a probability distribution for the dilaton field using the methods of Picard-Lefschetz theory.