Duality and zero-point length of spacetime
Abstract
The action for a relativistic free particle of mass receives a contribution from a path segment of infinitesimal length . Using this action in a path integral, one can obtain the Feynman propagator for a spinless particle of mass . If one of the effects of quantizing gravity is to introduce a minimum length scale in the spacetime, then one would expect the segments of paths with lengths less than to be suppressed in the path integral. Assuming that the path integral amplitude is invariant under the `duality' transformation , one can calculate the modified Feynman propagator. I show that this propagator is the same as the one obtained by assuming that: quantum effects of gravity leads to modification of the spacetime interval to . This equivalence suggests a deep relationship between introducing a `zero-point-length' to the spacetime and postulating invariance of path integral amplitudes under duality transformations.
Cite
@article{arxiv.hep-th/9608182,
title = {Duality and zero-point length of spacetime},
author = {T. Padmanabhan},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/9608182},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
Revtex document; 4 pages