Entropy Generation at the Horizon Diffuses Cosmological Constant in 2D de Sitter Space

Abstract

We investigate a solution of the exactly renormalized Liouville action to foresee the fate of the two-dimensional de Sitter space. We work in the semiclassical region with a large matter central charge $c$. Instead of de Sitter expansion, it performs a slow-roll inflation with the parameters $ε=(1/2)η=6/c$. An inflaton field is induced in the effective theory to describe quantum effects of the Liouville theory. The geometric entropy increases logarithmically with the Hubble radius. We propose that de Sitter entropy is carried by superhorizon modes of the metric. It can be directly estimated from the partition function as $S=\log Z$ in Liouville gravity. We formulate a gravitational Fokker-Planck equation to elucidate the Brownian process at the horizon: the superhorizon modes are constantly jolted by newcomers. We show that such a built-in entropy-generating process diffuses the cosmological constant. We evaluate von Neumann entropy associated with the distribution function of superhorizon modes. It always increases under the Fokker-Planck equation in a consistent way with semiclassical estimates. The maximum entropy principle operates in quantum gravity. An analogous entropy production mechanism at the horizon might have increased the Hubble radius much beyond the microscopic physics scale in the Universe.