arXiv subjects

Bret Underwood

Publications and source records attributed to Bret Underwood.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

A Landscape of Cosmological Decoherence

Current observations constrain primordial perturbations to be adiabatic, approximately Gaussian, and nearly-scale invariant. However, a generic mixed state satisfying these constraints has additional unconstrained degrees of freedom, which can be parameterized by the purity of the state and its momentum variance. This allowable parameter space reveals a unified geometric landscape of mixed states, allowing us to map and relate distinct models of decoherence and their respective pointer bases. Within this landscape we show that decoherence models that "classicalize" -- in the sense of admitting a regular, positive-definite Glauber-Sudarshan $P$-function -- must actively inject momentum into the system, exceeding that of the vacuum. The enhanced momentum sources the decaying mode of the curvature perturbation, backreacting on the Newtonian potential and radiation-era geometry. While this mode decays away fast enough to preserve the temporal coherence of the CMB acoustic peaks, requiring the potential to remain within linear perturbation theory places a model-independent bound on the momentum variance generated by any model of decoherence. This bound is definitively violated by decohered thermal states with more than $14$ e-folds of inflation, while a strong dependence on the number of e-folds restricts amplitude-basis decoherence to fewer than roughly $64$ e-folds of inflation in order to stay in the linear regime. Altogether, we present a unifying framework for evaluating the quantum-to-classical transition of the early universe.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2026

Toward an Effective Theory of the Volume Modulus

We investigate the 4-dimensional effective theory of the warped volume modulus in the presence of stabilizing effects from gaugino condensation by analyzing the linearized 10-dimensional supergravity equations of motion. Warping is generally expected to scale down the masses of bulk modes to the IR scale at the tip of a throat. We find that the mass of the warped volume modulus evades expectations and is largely insensitive to the effects of warping, even in strongly warped backgrounds. Instead, the mass is parametrically tied to the 4-dimensional AdS curvature scale $m^2 \sim {\mathcal O}(1) |\hat R_{\rm AdS}|$, presenting a challenge for scale separation in these backgrounds. We trace this effect to a universal contribution arising from the 10-dimensional equations of motion, and comment on the importance of a 10-dimensional treatment of the warped volume modulus for effective field theories and model building.

hep-th↗

arXiv2025

Inflation is Not Magic

Cosmological perturbations generated during inflation exhibit striking quantum features, including entanglement and high circuit complexity. Yet their observational signatures remain effectively indistinguishable from classical stochastic variables. We quantify this tension by showing that quantum inflationary perturbations are continuous variable stabilizer states with vanishing quantum magic, a necessary resource for universal quantum computation as measured by Wigner negativity. Consequently, despite their quantum origins and description, these states can be efficiently simulated using classical algorithms. We further show that the Wigner negativity arising from primordial non-Gaussianity is suppressed not only by the non-linearity parameter $f_{NL}$, but also by the exponential squeezing of the perturbations. Viewing the early universe as a "high complexity, low magic" regime provides another perspective of what it means for the origin of structure in the universe to be "quantum."

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Universal Early-Time Growth in Quantum Circuit Complexity

We show that quantum circuit complexity for the unitary time evolution operator of any time-independent Hamiltonian is bounded by linear growth at early times, independent of any choices of the fundamental gates or cost metric. Deviations from linear early-time growth arise from the commutation algebra of the gates and are manifestly negative for any circuit, decreasing the linear growth rate and leading to a bound on the growth rate of complexity of a circuit at early times. We illustrate this general result by applying it to qubit and harmonic oscillator systems, including the coupled and anharmonic oscillator. By discretizing free and interacting scalar field theories on a lattice, we are also able to extract the early-time behavior and dependence on the lattice spacing of complexity of these field theories in the continuum limit, demonstrating how this approach applies to systems that have been previously difficult to study using existing techniques for quantum circuit complexity.

hep-th↗

arXiv2022

Operator Complexity for Quantum Scalar Fields and Cosmological Perturbations

We calculate the operator complexity for the displacement, squeeze and rotation operators of a quantum harmonic oscillator. The complexity of the time-dependent displacement operator is constant, equal to the magnitude of the coherent state parameter, while the complexity of unitary evolution by a generic quadratic Hamiltonian is proportional to the amount of squeezing and is sensitive to the time-dependent phase of the unitary operator. We apply these results to study the complexity of a free massive scalar field, finding that the complexity has a period of rapid linear growth followed by a saturation determined by the UV cutoff and the number of spatial dimensions. We also study the complexity of the unitary evolution of quantum cosmological perturbations in de Sitter space, which can be written as time-dependent squeezing and rotation operators on individual Fourier mode pairs. The complexity of a single mode pair at late times grows linearly with the number of e-folds, while the complexity at early times oscillates rapidly due to the sensitivity of operator complexity to the phase of unitary time evolution. Integrating over all modes, the total complexity of cosmological perturbations scales as the square root of the (exponentially) growing volume of de Sitter space, suggesting that inflation leads to an explosive growth in complexity of the Universe.

hep-th↗

arXiv2021

Saturation of Thermal Complexity of Purification

We purify the thermal density matrix of a free harmonic oscillator as a two-mode squeezed state, characterized by a squeezing parameter and squeezing angle. While the squeezing parameter is fixed by the temperature and frequency of the oscillator, the squeezing angle is otherwise undetermined, so that the complexity of purification is obtained by minimizing the complexity of the squeezed state over the squeezing angle. The resulting complexity of the thermal state is minimized at non-zero values of the squeezing angle and saturates to an order one number at high temperatures, indicating that there is no additional operator cost required to build thermal states beyond a certain temperature. We also review applications in which thermal density matrices arise for quantum fields on curved spacetimes, including Hawking radiation and a simple model of decoherence of cosmological density perturbations in the early Universe. The complexity of purification for these mixed states also saturates as a function of the effective temperature, which may have interesting consequences for the quantum information stored in these systems.

hep-th↗

arXiv2021

The Squeezed OTOC and Cosmology

Exponential growth in the out-of-time-order correlator (OTOC) is an important potential signature of quantum chaos. The OTOC is quite simple to calculate for squeezed states, whose applications are frequently found in quantum optics and cosmology. We find that the OTOC for a generic highly squeezed quantum state is exponentially large, suggesting that highly squeezed states are "primed" for quantum chaos. A quantum generalization of the classical symplectic phase space matrix can be used to extract the quantum Lyapunov spectrum, and we find this better captures the exponential growth of squeezed states for all squeezing angles compared to any single OTOC. By describing cosmological perturbations in the squeezed state language, we are able to apply our calculations of the OTOC to arbitrary expanding and contracting backgrounds with fixed equation of state. We find that only expanding de Sitter backgrounds support an exponentially growing OTOC at late times, with a putative Lyapunov exponent consistent with other calculations. While the late-time behavior of the OTOC for other cosmological backgrounds appears to change depending on the equation of state, we find that the quantum Lyapunov spectrum shows some universal behavior: the OTOC grows proportional to the scale factor for perturbation wavelengths larger than the cosmological Hubble horizon.

hep-th↗

arXiv2020

Cosmological Complexity

We compute the quantum circuit complexity of the evolution of scalar curvature perturbations on expanding backgrounds, using the language of squeezed vacuum states. In particular, we construct a simple cosmological model consisting of an early-time period of de Sitter expansion followed by a radiation-dominated era and track the evolution of complexity throughout this history. During early-time de Sitter expansion the complexity grows linearly with the number of e-folds for modes outside the horizon. The evolution of complexity also suggests that the Universe behaves like a chaotic system during this era, for which we propose a scrambling time and Lyapunov exponent. During the radiation-dominated era, however, the complexity decreases until it "freezes in" after horizon re-entry, leading to a "de-complexification" of the Universe.

hep-th↗

arXiv2020

The Rise of Cosmological Complexity: Saturation of Growth and Chaos

We compute the circuit complexity of scalar curvature perturbations on FLRW cosmological backgrounds with fixed equation of state $w$ using the language of squeezed vacuum states. Backgrounds that are accelerating and expanding, or decelerating and contracting, exhibit features consistent with chaotic behavior, including linearly growing complexity. Remarkably, we uncover a bound on the growth of complexity for both expanding and contracting backgrounds $λ\leq \sqrt{2} \ |H|$, similar to other bounds proposed independently in the literature. The bound is saturated for expanding backgrounds with an equation of state more negative than $w = -5/3$, and for contracting backgrounds with an equation of state larger than $w = 1$. For expanding backgrounds that preserve the null energy condition, de Sitter space has the largest rate of growth of complexity (identified as the Lyapunov exponent), and we find a scrambling time that is similar to other estimates up to order one factors.

hep-th↗

arXiv2019

Constraints and Horizons for de Sitter with Extra Dimensions

In order for spacetimes with static extra dimensions to have 4-dimensional de Sitter expansion they must have at least positive curvature, warping sourced by the 4-d expansion, or violate the null energy condition everywhere in the extra dimensions. We show how this constraint arises from the null Raychaudhuri equation, and that it is independent of the matter content, the Einstein equations, and is true point-by-point in the extra dimensions (not integrated), setting it apart from other no-go theorems in the literature. We present two previously known examples -- a Freund-Rubin compactification with bulk cosmological constant, and a Randall-Sundrum model where the mismatch between the brane and bulk cosmological constants sources non-trivial warping -- which evade the constraint, and discuss the implications for flux compactifications. We also show that any spacetime with static compact extra dimensions and 4-dimensional de Sitter expansion has an apparent horizon and antitrapped region in the extra dimensions, which may have interesting implications for the dynamics of bulk fields in cosmology.

hep-th↗

arXiv2018

Towards the Raychaudhuri Equation Beyond General Relativity

In General Relativity, gravity is universally attractive, a feature embodied by the Raychaudhuri equation which requires that the expansion of a congruence of geodesics is always non-increasing, as long as matter obeys the strong or weak energy conditions. This behavior of geodesics is an important ingredient in general proofs of singularity theorems, which show that many spacetimes are singular in the sense of being geodesically incomplete and suggest that General Relativity is itself incomplete. It is possible that alternative theories of gravity, which reduce to General Relativity in some limit, can resolve these singularities, so it is of interest to consider how the behavior of geodesics is modified in these frameworks. We compute the leading corrections to the Raychaudhuri equation for the expansion due to models in string theory, braneworld gravity, $f(R)$ theories, and Loop Quantum Cosmology, for cosmological and black hole backgrounds, and show that while in most cases geodesic convergence is reinforced, in a few cases terms representing repulsion arise, weakening geodesic convergence and thereby the conclusions of the singularity theorems.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2017

Consistent Cosmic Bubble Embeddings

The Raychaudhuri equation for null rays is a powerful tool for finding consistent embeddings of cosmological bubbles into a background spacetime in a way that is largely independent of the matter content. We find that spatially flat or positively curved thin wall bubbles surrounded by a cosmological background must have a Hubble expansion that is either contracting or expanding slower than the background, which are more stringent constraints than those obtained by the usual Israel thin-wall formalism. Similarly, a cosmological bubble surrounded by Schwarzschild space, occasionally used as a simple "swiss cheese" model of inhomogenities in an expanding universe, must be contracting (for spatially flat and positively curved bubbles) and bounded in size by the apparent horizon.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Dimensional Reduction for D3-brane Moduli

Warped string compactifications are central to many attempts to stabilize moduli and connect string theory with cosmology and particle phenomenology. We present a first-principles derivation of the low-energy 4D effective theory from dimensional reduction of a D3-brane in a warped Calabi-Yau compactification of type IIB string theory with imaginary self-dual 3-form flux, including effects of D3-brane motion beyond the probe approximation, and find the metric on the moduli space of brane positions, the universal volume modulus, and axions descending from the 4-form potential. As D3-branes may be considered as carrying either electric or magnetic charges for the self-dual 5-form field strength, we present calculations in both duality frames. Our results are consistent with, but extend significantly, earlier results on the low-energy effective theory arising from D3-branes in string compactifications.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Non-Linear Resonance in Relativistic Preheating

Inflation in the early Universe can be followed by a brief period of preheating, resulting in rapid and non-equilibrium particle production through the dynamics of parametric resonance. However, the parametric resonance effect is very sensitive to the linearity of the reheating sector. Additional self-interactions in the reheating sector, such as non-canonical kinetic terms like the DBI Lagrangian, may enhance or frustrate the parametric resonance effect of preheating. In the case of a DBI reheating sector, preheating is described by parametric resonance of a damped relativistic harmonic oscillator. In this paper, we illustrate how the non-linear terms in the relativistic oscillator shut down the parametric resonance effect. This limits the effectiveness of preheating when there are non-linear self-interactions.

hep-th↗

arXiv2013

Cosmology or Catastrophe? A non-minimally coupled scalar in an inhomogeneous universe

A non-minimally coupled scalar field can have, in principle, a negative effective Planck mass squared which depends on the scalar field. Surprisingly, an isotropic and homogeneous cosmological universe with a non-minimally coupled scalar field is perfectly smooth as the rolling scalar field causes the effective Planck mass to change sign and pass through zero. However, we show that any small deviations from homogeneity diverge as the effective Planck mass vanishes, with catastrophic consequences for the cosmology. The physical origin of the divergence is due to the presence of non-zero scalar anisotropic stress from the non-minimally coupled scalar field. Thus, while the homogeneous and isotropic cosmology appears surprisingly sensible when the effective Planck mass vanishes, inhomogeneities tell a different story.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

A Breathing Mode for Warped Compactifications

In general warped compactifications, non-trivial backgrounds for the warp factor and the dilaton break $D$-dimensional diffeomorphism invariance, so that dilaton fluctuations can be gauged away completely and eaten by the metric. More specifically, the warped volume modulus and the dilaton are not independent, but combine into a single gauge-invariant degree of freedom in the lower dimensional effective theory, the warped breathing mode. This occurs for all strengths of the warping, even the weakly warped limit. This warped breathing mode appears as a natural zero mode deformation of backgrounds sourced by p-branes, and affects the identification of the independent degrees of freedom of flux compactifications.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Preheating with the Brakes On: The Effects of a Speed Limit

We study preheating in models where the inflaton has a non-canonical kinetic term, containing powers of the usual kinetic energy. The inflaton field oscillating about its potential minimum acts as a driving force for particle production through parametric resonance. Non-canonical kinetic terms can impose a speed limit on the motion of the inflaton, modifying the oscillating inflaton profile. This has two important effects: it turns a smooth sinusoidal profile into a sharp saw-tooth, enhancing resonance, and it lengthens the period of oscillations, suppressing resonance. We show that the second effect dominates over the first, so that preheating with a non-canonical inflaton field is less efficient than with canonical kinetic terms, and that the expansion of the Universe suppresses resonance even further.

hep-th↗

arXiv2010

Attractive Lagrangians for Noncanonical Inflation

Treating inflation as an effective theory, we expect the effective Lagrangian to contain higher-dimensional kinetic operators suppressed by the scale of UV physics. When these operators are powers of the inflaton kinetic energy, the scalar field can support a period of noncanonical inflation which is smoothly connected to the usual slow-roll inflation. We show how to construct noncanonical inflationary solutions to the equations of motion for the first time, and demonstrate that noncanonical inflation is an attractor in phase space for all small- and large-field models. We identify some sufficient conditions on the functional form of the Lagrangian that lead to successful noncanonical inflation since not every Lagrangian with higher-dimensional kinetic operators can support noncanonical inflation. This extends the class of known viable Lagrangians and excludes many Lagrangians which do not work.

hep-th↗