Wormholes as red herrings: reflection positivity and the reconstruction of unitary quantum field theories

Abstract

As Coleman famously argued, the apparent breakdown of partition-function factorization in quantum gravity associated with Euclidean wormholes is a red herring, arising from a hidden average over an ensemble of theories. We present a direct analog of Coleman's argument for the apparent breakdown of Hilbert-space factorization associated with spatial wormholes, i.e., Einstein--Rosen bridges. Our main result is the following reconstruction theorem for quantum field theories: unitary QFTs are determined, up to unitary isomorphism, by their closed-manifold partition functions; every reflection-positive partition function arises from a unitary quantum field theory; and the states prepared by manifolds span the space of invariant states under the reconstructed theory's symmetry group. Interpreting the result gravitationally, we conclude that any apparent breakdown of Hilbert-space factorization is a red herring, arising from restricting to an incomplete spectrum of charged states.