Related papers: An Analog Model for Quantum Lightcone Fluctuations…
Quantum gravity is quite elusive at the experimental level; thus a lot of interest has been raised by recent searches for quantum gravity effects in the propagation of light from distant sources, like gamma ray bursters and active galactic…
Quantum fluctuations in spacetime can, in some cases, lead to distortion in astronomical images of faraway objects. In particular, a stochastic model of quantum gravity predicts an accumulated fluctuation in the path length $\Delta L$ with…
I discuss some theoretical ideas concerning the representation of quantum gravity as a Lorentz-symmetry-violating `medium' with non-trivial optical properties, which include a refractive index in `vacuo' and stochastic effects associated…
Vacuum fluctuations of quantum fields are altered in presence of a strong gravitational background, with important physical consequences. We argue that a non-trivial spacetime geometry can act as an optically active medium for quantum…
We describe an analog model for quantum gravity effects in condensed matter physics. The situation discussed is that of phonons propagating in a fluid with a random velocity wave equation. We consider that there are random fluctuations in…
We discuss how compactified extra dimensions may have potentially observable effects which grow as the compactification scale decreases. This arises because of lightcone fluctuations in the uncompactified dimensions which can result in the…
The operational meaning of spacetime fluctuations is discussed. Classical spacetime geometry can be viewed as encoding the relations between the motions of test particles in the geometry. By analogy, quantum fluctuations of spacetime…
Some models of quantum gravity can predict observable effects on the propagation of light: most notably an energy dependent dispersion, where the speed of light is seen to vary with the energy of the photon. As quantum gravity effects…
Recent experiments of fluid transport in nano-channels have shown evidence of a coupling between charge-fluctuations in polar fluids and electronic excitations in graphene solids, which may lead to a significant reduction of friction a…
In the context of field theory in curved spacetimes, it is known that suitable background spacetime geometries can trigger instabilities of fields, leading to exponential growth of their (quantum and classical) fluctuations --- a phenomenon…
The influence of quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field on the propagation of a polarized light wave in a nonlinear dielectric is investigated. It is shown that in some cases, the fluctuations couple to the optical nonlinearities…
In this paper we study the effects of quantum scalar field vacuum fluctuations on scalar test particles in an analog model for the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spatially flat geometry. In this scenario, the cases with one and two perfectly…
Using a \emph{gedanken} experiment providing presumably a minimal inaccuracy the uncertainty contributions to the space-time measurement are precisely evaluated for clock and mirror respectively. The resulting expression of minimal…
The expectation that it should not be possible to gain experimental insight on the structure of space-time at Planckian distance scales has been recently challenged by several studies. With respect to space-time fluctuations, one of the…
Quantum fluctuations of the vacuum stress-energy tensor are highly non-Gaussian, and can have unexpectedly large effects on spacetime geometry. In this paper, we study a two-dimensional dilaton gravity model coupled to a conformal field, in…
A satisfactory theory of quantum gravity will very likely require modification of our classical perception of space-time, perhaps by giving it a 'foamy' structure at scales of order the Planck length. This is expected to modify the…
Space--time can be understood as some kind of space--time foam of fluctuating bubbles or loops which are expected to be an outcome of a theory of quantum gravity. One recently discussed model for this kind of space--time fluctuations is the…
We describe space--time fluctuations by means of small fluctuations of the metric on a given background metric. From a minimally coupled Klein--Gordon equation we obtain within a weak-field approximation up to second order and an averaging…
Exploring potential empirical manifestations of quantum gravity is a challenging pursuit. In this study, we utilise a lattice representation of a (2+1)D massive gravity toy model interacting with Dirac fermions that can support specific…
The microscopic processes underlying electro-optic sampling of quantum-vacuum fluctuations are discussed, leading to the interpretation of these experiments in terms of an exchange of virtual photons. With this in mind it is shown how one…