Instanton symmetries and the entropy of compact manifolds
Abstract
Description
Many Euclidean Einstein manifolds possess continuous symmetry groups of at least one parameter and we consider here a classification scheme of $d$ dimensional compact manifolds based on the existence of such a one parameter group in terms of the fixed point sets of the isometries. We discuss applications of such a classification scheme, including the geometric interpretation of the entropy; there are intrinsic contributions to the entropy from the volumes of $(d-2)$ dimensional fixed point sets and contributions related to the cohomology structure of the orbit space of the isometry. We consider the relevance of such a decomposition of the entropy in the context of the no boundary proposal and cosmological processes, and generalise the discussion to compact solutions of gravity coupled to scalar and gauge fields.
28 pages, RevTeX
28 pages, RevTeX