English

$\hbar$ as parameter of Minkowski metric in effective theory

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2011-05-12 v4 Other Condensed Matter High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

With the proper choice of the dimensionality of the metric components, the action for all fields becomes dimensionless. Such quantities as the vacuum speed of light c, the Planck constant \hbar, the electric charge e, the particle mass m, the Newton constant G never enter equations written in the covariant form, i.e., via the metric g^{\mu\nu}. The speed of light c and the Planck constant are parameters of a particular two-parametric family of solutions of general relativity equations describing the flat isotropic Minkowski vacuum in effective theory emerging at low energy: g^{\mu\nu}=diag(-\hbar^2, (\hbar c)^2, (\hbar c)^2, (\hbar c)^2). They parametrize the equilibrium quantum vacuum state. The physical quantities which enter the covariant equations are dimensionless quantities and dimensionful quantities of dimension of rest energy M or its power. Dimensionless quantities include the running coupling `constants' \alpha_i; topological and geometric quantum numbers (angular momentum quantum number j, weak charge, electric charge q, hypercharge, baryonic and leptonic charges, number of atoms N, etc). Dimensionful parameters include the rest energies of particles M_n (or/and mass matrices); the gravitational coupling K with dimension of M^2; cosmological constant with dimension M^4; etc. In effective theory, the interval s has the dimension of 1/M; it characterizes the dynamics of particles in the quantum vacuum rather than geometry of space-time. We discuss the effective action, and the measured physical quantities resulting from the action, including parameters which enter the Josepson effect, quantum Hall effect, etc.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0904.1965,
  title  = {$\hbar$ as parameter of Minkowski metric in effective theory},
  author = {G. E. Volovik},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0904.1965},
  year   = {2011}
}

Comments

18 pages, no figures, extended version of the paper accepted in JETP Letters

R2 v1 2026-06-21T12:50:49.744Z