On the propagation across the big bounce in an open quantum FLRW cosmology

Recently, solutions of the Ishibashi, Kawai, Kitazawa and Tsuchiya matrix theory have been found, which can be interpreted as 3+1-dimensional quantum geometries describing an effective Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker cosmology with a big bounce. In this paper, we examine the propagation of a scalar field in an open Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker spacetime arising within this framework. The paper is divided into two parts. In the first one, we perform a classical investigation by resorting to general-relativity tools where we show that both massless and massive non-interacting particles can travel across the big bounce. In the second part, we evaluate the scalar field propagator by means of quantum-field-theory techniques. This analysis reveals that in the late-time regime the scalar propagator resembles the standard Feynman propagator of flat Minkowski space, whereas for early times it gives rise to a well-defined correlation between two points on opposite sheets of the spacetime.