Causal Sets and an Emerging Continuum
Abstract
Causal set theory offers a simple and elegant picture of discrete physics. But the vast majority of causal sets look nothing at all like continuum spacetimes, and must be excluded in some way to obtain a realistic theory. I describe recent results showing that almost all non-manifoldlike causal sets are, in fact, very strongly suppressed in the gravitational path integral. This does not quite demonstrate the emergence of a continuum -- we do not yet understand the remaining unsuppressed causal sets well enough -- but it is a significant step in that direction.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2405.14059,
title = {Causal Sets and an Emerging Continuum},
author = {Steven Carlip},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.14059},
year = {2024}
}
Comments
for a special edition of Gen. Rel. Grav., "QG@RRI"; v2: arXiv number in ref. [28] corrected, no other changes; v3: minor clarifications, typos corrected, brief discussion of Gibbons-Hawking boundary term