What if? Exploring the multiverse through Euclidean wormholes

Eur Phys J C Part Fields. 2017;77(10):718. doi: 10.1140/epjc/s10052-017-5279-6. Epub 2017 Oct 28.

Abstract

We present Euclidean wormhole solutions describing possible bridges within the multiverse. The study is carried out in the framework of third quantisation. The matter content is modelled through a scalar field which supports the existence of a whole collection of universes. The instanton solutions describe Euclidean solutions that connect baby universes with asymptotically de Sitter universes. We compute the tunnelling probability of these processes. Considering the current bounds on the energy scale of inflation and assuming that all the baby universes are nucleated with the same probability, we draw some conclusions about which universes are more likely to tunnel and therefore undergo a standard inflationary era.