Related papers: Spacetime instability due to quantum gravity
Inflationary cosmology has, in the last few years,received a strong dose of support from observations. The fact that the fluctuation spectrum can be extracted from the inflationary scenario through an analysis that involves quantum field…
In quantum cosmology, one has to select a specific wave function solution of the quantum state equations under consideration in order to obtain concrete results. The simplest choices have been already explored, in different frameworks,…
The vacuum of quantum fields contains correlated fluctuations. When restricted to one side of a surface these have a huge entropy of entanglement that scales with the surface area. If UV physics renders this entropy finite, then a…
The problem of quantum gravity is treated from a radically new viewpoint based on a detailed mathematical analysis of what the constitution of physical space is, which has been carried out by Michel Bounias and the author. The approach…
We investigate a conformal invariant gravitational model which is taken to hold at pre-inflationary era. The conformal invariance allows to make a dynamical distinction between the two unit systems (or conformal frames) usually used in…
The proper resolution of the so-called measurement problem requires a "top-down" conception of the quantum world that is opposed to the usual "bottom-up" conception, which builds on an intrinsically and maximally differentiated manifold.…
Quadratic gravity is a UV completion of general relativity, which also solves the hierarchy problem. The presence of 4 derivatives implies via the Ostrogradsky theorem that the $classical$ Hamiltonian is unbounded from below. Here we solve…
We present a numerical investigation of the evolution of the Hawking mass for perturbed surfaces evolving under hypersurface-restricted uniformly expanding flows in Minkowski spacetime. Although monotonicity of the Hawking mass under…
In gravitational theories with extra dimensions, it is argued that the existence of a positive vacuum energy generically implies catastrophic instability of our four-dimensional world. The most generic instability is a decompactification…
We analyse the classical stability of the model proposed by Maggiore and Mancarella, where gravity is modified by a term $\sim m^2 R \Box^{-2} R$ to produce the late-time acceleration of the expansion of the universe. Our study takes into…
Assuming that Quantum Mechanics is universal and that it can be applied over all scales, then the Universe is allowed to be in a quantum superposition of states, where each of them can correspond to a different space-time geometry. How can…
We formulate an approach to quantum gravity, called the ring paradigm. Gravity is mediated superluminally, and the graviton is described as a phonon on the grid of matter in the Universe. This theory has very interesting applications to…
The stability of the minisuperspace model of the early universe is studied by solving the Wheeler-DeWitt equation numerically. We consider a system of Einstein gravity with a scalar field. When we solve the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, we pick…
Some aspects of quantum field theory in a general (i.e. non inertial) frame of Minkowski spacetime are studied. Conditions for the presence of horizons as well as for the modification of the definition of positive energy solutions are…
The quadratic theory of gravity is the unique renormalizable theory of quantum gravity in 4 dimensions, as proved by K. S. Stelle in 1977. Over the decades, the theory has been understood to contain a massive tensor ghost, and several…
We study a contracting universe composed of cold dark matter and radiation, and with a positive cosmological constant. As is well known from standard cosmological perturbation theory, under the assumption of initial quantum vacuum…
I argue that a solution to the cosmological constant problem is to assume that the expectation value of the quantum vacuum stress-energy tensor is proportional to the metric tensor with a negative energy density and positive pressure. This…
In this paper, we further develop a recently proposed theory of time based on wavefunction collapse in general relativity. It is based on the postulations that quantum states, which violate the momentum and Hamiltonian constraints,…
Multi-messenger astronomy provides us with the possibility of discovering phenomenological signatures of quantum-gravity effects. This should be of paramount importance in the pursuit of an elusive quantum theory for the gravitational…
In the past decade the phenomenology of quantum gravity has been dominated by the search of violations of Lorentz invariance. However, there are very serious arguments that led us to assume that this invariance is a symmetry in Nature. This…