The Boundary Cosmological Constant in Stable 2D Quantum Gravity

Abstract

We study further the rôle of the boundary operator $Ø_B$ for macroscopic loop length in the stable definition of 2D quantum gravity provided by the $[{\tilde P},Q]=Q$ formulation. The KdV flows are supplemented by an additional flow with respect to the boundary cosmological constant $σ$. We numerically study these flows for the $m=1$, $2$ and $3$ models, solving for the string susceptibility in the presence of $Ø_B$ for arbitrary coupling $σ$. The spectrum of the Hamiltonian of the loop quantum mechanics is continuous and bounded from below by $σ$. For large positive $σ$, the theory is dominated by the `universal' $m=0$ topological phase present only in the $[{\tilde P},Q]=Q$ formulation. For large negative $σ$, the non--perturbative physics approaches that of the $[P,Q]=1$ definition, although there is no path to the unstable solutions of the $[P,Q]=1$ $m$-even models.