Related papers: Discovering the Discrete Universe
We begin by describing a sequential growth model in which the universe grows one element at a time in discrete time steps. At each step, the process has the form of a causal set and the "completed" universe is given by a path consisting of…
More often than not, recently popular structuralist interpretations of physical theories leave the central concept of a structure insufficiently precisified. The incipient causal sets approach to quantum gravity offers a paradigmatic case…
Causal sets are particular partially ordered sets which have been proposed as a basic model for discrete space-time in quantum gravity. We show that the class C of all countable past-finite causal sets contains a unique causal set (U,<)…
A recently proposed algebraic representation of the causal set model of the small-scale structure of space-time of Sorkin et al. is briefly reviewed and expanded. The algebraic model suggested, called quantum causal set, is physically…
One of approaches to quantum gravity is different models of a discrete pregeometry. An example of a discrete pregeometry on a microscopic scale is introduced. This is the particular case of a causal set. The causal set is a locally finite…
Within the causal set approach to quantum gravity, a discrete analog of a spacelike region is a set of unrelated elements, or an antichain. In the continuum approximation of the theory, a moment-of-time hypersurface is well represented by…
An argument is presented that if a theory of quantum gravity is physically discrete at the Planck scale and the theory recovers General Relativity as an approximation, then, at the current stage of our knowledge, causal sets must arise…
A new approach to quantum gravity is described which joins the loop representation formulation of the canonical theory to the causal set formulation of the path integral. The theory assigns quantum amplitudes to special classes of causal…
Causal set theory is perhaps the most minimalistic approach to quantum gravity, in the sense that it makes next to zero assumptions about the structure of spacetime below the Planck scale. Yet even with this minimalism, the continuum limit…
Starting from certain causality conditions and a discrete form of general covariance, we derive a very general family of classically stochastic, sequential growth dynamics for causal sets. The resulting theories provide a relatively…
Any discrete approach to quantum gravity must provide some prescription as to how to deduce continuum properties from the discrete substructure. In the causal set approach it is straightforward to deduce timelike distances, but surprisingly…
The Causal Set hypothesis asserts that spacetime, ultimately, is discrete and its underlying structure is that of a locally finite partial ordered set, and macroscopic causality reflects a deeper notion of order in terms of which all the…
We review recent efforts to construct gravitational theories on discrete space-times, usually referred to as the ``consistent discretization'' approach. The resulting theories are free of constraints at the canonical level and therefore…
In the causal set approach to discrete quantum gravity the universe grows one element at a time in discrete steps. At each step the process has the form of a causal set (causet) and the "completed" universe is given by a path through a…
The proposed theory of causally structured discrete fields studies integer values on directed edges of a self-similar graph with a propagation rule, which we define as a set of valid combinations of integer values and edge directions around…
We describe a new class of models of quantum space-time based on energetic causal sets and show that under natural conditions space-time emerges from them. These are causal sets whose causal links are labelled by energy and momentum and…
The causal set approach to the problem of quantum gravity is based on the hypothesis that spacetime is fundamentally discrete. Spacetime discreteness opens the door to novel types of dynamical law for cosmology and the Classical Sequential…
We explicitly compute the causal structure of the Schwarzschild black hole spacetime, by providing an algorithm to decide if any pair of events is causally related. The primary motivation for this study comes from discrete quantum gravity,…
One could begin a study like the present one by simply postulating that our universe is four-dimensional. There are ample reasons for doing this. Experience, observation and experiment all point to the fact that we inhabit a…
Causal fermion systems are introduced as a general mathematical framework for formulating relativistic quantum theory. By specializing, we recover earlier notions like fermion systems in discrete space-time, the fermionic projector and…