Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 iii Paper 56 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Use units and put . The static patch of de Sitter spacetime has radial factor . A Wick rotation makes its radial-time metric positive:Near the cosmological horizon, write . Then andin the radial-time directions. Thus must be an angle of period . A larger integer multiple would give a conical excess rather than a smooth origin. The Euclidean black-hole regularity condition givesThis de Sitter horizon temperature uses the time normalization at , where is proper time; static observers at other radii see the corresponding Tolman temperature law redshift.
Vary the gravitational Euclidean action with respect to . The identities and the integrated variation of the scalar curvature yield, after discarding the assumed boundary term,The resulting vacuum Einstein field equations are thereforeTracing in four dimensions gives , and substitution gives .
The smooth Euclidean geometry is compact. Explicitly, in Euclidean five-space useThese obey and induce precisely the above metric, so with the identified Euclidean time covers a round four-sphere once. Neither the collapsing two-sphere at nor the collapsing time circle at is a physical boundary. Since , its volume and on-shell Euclidean action areThe semiclassical partition function is , and follows from the free energy relation . With the stipulated zero internal energy,Thus the Euclidean de Sitter action and entropy reproduce the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of the cosmological horizon without a boundary contribution. Restoring constants, .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 58 1 d Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
In units, the Hawking temperature is for the stated time normalization. The inertial central observer sees the de Sitter horizon temperature . The Tolman temperature law states in static thermal equilibrium. HenceWith part b, and at the horizon. This tends to the Unruh effect temperature for the increasingly accelerated observer.
Let be proper distance inward from the horizon. Then , , givingThe radial factor has Rindler coordinates: and make it Minkowskian. Fixed has acceleration and temperature , agreeing with the leading behavior. At the center but the finite de Sitter temperature remains; is only the near-horizon limit here.