Related papers: Quantum Indeterminacy of Cosmic Systems
We consider the uncertainty in the arm length of an interferometer due to metric fluctuations from the quantum nature of gravity, proposing a concrete microscopic model of energy fluctuations in holographic degrees of freedom on the surface…
The electronic structure of heavy elements, when described in a space-time which the metric is affected by the electromagnetic interaction, presents instabilities. These instabilities increase with the atomic number, and above a critical…
General relativity describes the gravitational field geometrically and in a self-interacting way because it couples to all forms of energy, including its own. Both features make finding a quantum theory difficult, yet it is important in the…
The evolution of cosmological large-scale perturbations is described in terms of the concordant model based on the recent discovery of cosmic vacuum. It is demonstrated that the process is robustly controlled by a few epoch-independent…
Quantum fields possess zero-point or vacuum fluctuations which induce mechanical effects, namely generalised Casimir forces, on any scatterer. Symmetries of vacuum therefore raise fundamental questions when confronted with the principle of…
It has been suggested that by increasing the speed of light during the early universe various cosmological problems of standard big bang cosmology can be overcome, without requiring an inflationary phase. However, we find that as the Planck…
The Standard Model of the elementary particles is controlled by more than 20 parameters, of which it is not known today how they can be linked to deeper principles. Any attempt to clean up this theory, in general results in producing more…
A velocity of a point particle in the kappa-Minkowski spacetime is investigated. Characteristic points of the spacetime are that the Poincare group becomes a quantum group with kappa, which is a mass dimension parameter, and is a kind of…
By considering (non-relativistic) quantum mechanics as it is done in practice in particular in condensed-matter physics, it is argued that a deterministic, unitary time evolution within a chosen Hilbert space always has a limited scope,…
We propose the generalized uncertainty principle (GUP) with an additional term of quadratic momentum motivated by string theory and black hole physics as a quantum mechanical framework for the minimal length uncertainty at the Planck scale.…
With the decline of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics and the recent experiments indicating that quantum mechanics does actually embody 'objective reality', one might ask if a 'mechanical', conceptual model for quantum…
Some nondifferentiable quantities (for example, the metric signature) can be the independent physical degrees of freedom. It is supposed that in quantum gravity these degrees of freedom can fluctuate. Two examples of such quantum…
We investigate the impact of quantum fluctuations on a light rolling quintessence field from three different sources, namely, from a coupling to the standard model and dark matter, from its self-couplings and from its coupling to gravity.…
Spacetime is foamy due to quantum fluctuations. Various gedanken experiments show that distances fluctuate by amounts consistent with the holographic principle, hence the name "holographic quantum foam" (HQF). One important prediction of…
We discuss the concept of measurement in cosmology from the relativistic and quantum mechanical points of view. The uncertainty principle within the particle horizon, excludes the momentum of particles to be less than $\pi\hbar H/c$. This…
The standard interpretation of the observed redshifted spectra and luminosities towards distant astrophysical objects is that the universe is expanding, an inference which is found to be consistent with other cosmological probes as well.…
We present here a set of lecture notes on quantum systems with time-dependent boundaries. In particular, we analyze the dynamics of a non-relativistic particle in a bounded domain of physical space, when the boundaries are moving or…
I explain in what sense the structure of space and time is probably vague or indefinite, a notion I define. This leads to the mathematical representation of location in space and time by a vague interval. From this, a principle of…
It is possible that there may be differences in the fundamental physical parameters from one side of the observed universe to the other. I show that the cosmological constant is likely to be the most sensitive of the physical parameters to…
We show how, by considering the cumulative effect of tiny quantum gravitational fluctuations over very large distances, it may be possible to: ($a$) reconcile nucleosynthesis bounds on the density parameter of the Universe with the…