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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Soft gravitons as Goldstone modes of spontaneously broken asymptotic symmetries in de Sitter spacetimes

Martin S. Sloth*

  • *Contact author: sloth@sdu.dk
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Phys. Rev. D 112, L021501 – Published 7 July, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/bsjy-4tj8

Abstract

I demonstrate that soft graviton modes in de Sitter spacetimes are the Goldstone modes of the spontaneously broken asymptotic symmetry group of de Sitter space. I then show that any local measurement, including the effects of the environment, will collapse the symmetric state onto the broken state in the large volume limit. In any discussion involving observers, de Sitter spacetimes are, therefore, best described globally by the broken phase, while local observers, in the small volume limit, can not discriminate between different degenerate global vacuum states and are therefore best described by the symmetric state. As a consequence, a small Hubbled-sized local region initially in the symmetric state will, after a time-scale corresponding to the Page time of de Sitter space, have expanded to a large region in the broken state. This illuminates the physical nature of soft graviton modes in de Sitter spacetimes.

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Phys. Rev. D 112, L021501– Published 7 July, 2025
  • Received 10 February 2025
  • Accepted 19 June 2025
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