English

Realistic Observable in Background-Free Quantum Gravity: the Planck-Star Tunnelling-Time

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2016-10-26 v3 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

A gravitationally collapsed object can bounce-out from its horizon via a tunnelling process that violates the classical equations in a finite region. Since tunnelling is a non-perturbative phenomenon, it cannot be described in terms of quantum fluctuations around a classical solution and a background-free formulation of quantum gravity is needed to analyze it. Here we use Loop Quantum Gravity to compute the amplitude for this process, in a first approximation. The amplitude determines the tunnelling time as a function of the mass. This is the key information to evaluate the astrophysical relevance of this process. The calculation offers a template and a concrete example of how a background-free quantum theory of gravity can be used to compute a realistical observable quantity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1605.05268,
  title  = {Realistic Observable in Background-Free Quantum Gravity: the Planck-Star Tunnelling-Time},
  author = {Marios Christodoulou and Carlo Rovelli and Simone Speziale and Ilya Vilensky},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1605.05268},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

We consider this paper important. 17 pages, 13 figures