Related papers: Fakeons, Microcausality And The Classical Limit Of…
Under certain assumptions, it is possible to make sense of higher derivative theories by quantizing the unwanted degrees of freedom as fakeons, which are later projected away. Then the true classical limit is obtained by classicizing the…
The correspondence principle made of unitarity, locality and renormalizability has been very successful in quantum field theory. Among the other things, it helped us build the standard model. However, it also showed important limitations.…
The concept of fake particle, or "fakeon", allows us to make sense of quantum gravity as an ultraviolet complete theory, by renouncing causality at very small distances. We investigate whether the violation of microcausality can be…
We investigate the properties of fakeons in quantum gravity at one loop. The theory is described by a graviton multiplet, which contains the fluctuation $h_{\mu \nu }$ of the metric, a massive scalar $\phi $ and the spin-2 fakeon $\chi…
Certain approaches to quantum gravity, such as the one based on the concept of purely virtual particles (fakeons), sacrifice the cause-effect relation at very small scales to reconcile renormalizability with unitarity. Other developments…
We review the concept of purely virtual particle and its uses in quantum gravity, primordial cosmology and collider physics. The fake particle, or "fakeon", which mediates interactions without appearing among the incoming and outgoing…
We point out the idea that, at small scales, gravity can be described by the standard degrees of freedom of general relativity, plus a scalar particle and a degree of freedom of a new type: the fakeon. This possibility leads to fundamental…
We give a simple proof of perturbative unitarity in gauge theories and quantum gravity using a special gauge that allows us to separate the physical poles of the free propagators, which are quantized by means of the Feynman prescription,…
This article provides a cartoon of the quantization of General Relativity using the ideas of effective field theory. These ideas underpin the use of General Relativity as a theory from which precise predictions are possible, since they show…
As a canonical and generally covariant gauge theory, loop quantum gravity requires special techniques to derive effective actions or equations. If the proper constructions are taken into account, the theory, in spite of considerable…
The search for purely virtual quanta has attracted interest in the past. We consider various proposals and compare them to the concept of fake particle, or "fakeon". In particular, the Feynman-Wheeler propagator, which amounts to using the…
One of the great challenges for 21st century physics is to quantize gravity and generate a theory that will unify gravity with the other three fundamental forces of nature. This paper takes the (heretical) point of view that gravity may be…
The descriptions of the quantum realm and the macroscopic classical world differ significantly not only in their mathematical formulations but also in their foundational concepts and philosophical consequences. When and how physical systems…
The search for a theory of quantum gravity is the most fundamental problem in all of theoretical physics, but there are as yet no experimental results at all to guide this endeavor. What seems to be needed is a pragmatic way to test if…
What if gravity is classical? If true, a consistent co-existence of classical gravity and quantum matter requires that gravity exhibit irreducible fluctuations. These fluctuations can mediate classical correlations, but not quantum…
Theories with purely virtual particles (fakeons) do not possess a classical action in the strict sense, but rather a "classicized" one, obtained by integrating out the fake particles at tree level. Although this procedure generates nonlocal…
A theory of quantum gravity has been recently proposed by means of a novel quantization prescription, which is able to turn the poles of the free propagators that are due to the higher derivatives into fakeons. The classical Lagrangian…
Classical physics fails where quantum physics prevails. This common understanding applies to quantum phenomena that are acknowledged to be beyond the reach of classical physics. Here, we make an attempt at weakening this solid belief that…
The effort to discover a quantum theory of gravity is motivated by the need to reconcile the incompatibility between quantum theory and general relativity. Here, we present an alternative approach by constructing a consistent theory of…
In canonical quantum gravity, the formal functional integral includes an integration over the local conformal factor, and we propose to perform the functional integral over this factor before doing any of the other functional integrals. By…