Related papers: Points. Lack thereof
A satisfactory theory of quantum gravity may necessitate a drastic modification of our perception of space-time, by giving it a foamy structure at distances comparable to the Planck length. It is argued in this essay that the experimental…
Drawing from a thought experiment that we conduct, we propose that a virtual graviton gives rise to a black hole geometry when its momentum surpasses a certain threshold value on the Planck scale. This hypothesis implies that the propagator…
It is widely believed that quantum gravity effects are negligible in a conventional laboratory experiment because quantum gravity should play its role only at a distance of about Planck's length ($\sim10^{-33}$ cm). Sometimes that is not…
In any attempt to build a quantum theory of gravity, a central issue is to unravel the structure of space-time at the smallest scale. Of particular relevance is the possible definition of coordinate functions within the theory and the study…
Each approach to the quantum-gravity problem originates from expertise in one or another area of theoretical physics. The particle-physics perspective encourages one to attempt to reproduce in quantum gravity as much as possible of the…
Quantum groups and non-commutative spaces have been repeatedly utilized in approaches to quantum gravity. They provide a mathematically elegant cut-off, often interpreted as related to the Planck-scale quantum uncertainty in position. We…
It is well known that phase transitions arise if the interaction among particles embodies an attractive as well as a repulsive contribution. In this work it will be shown that the breakdown of Lorentz symmetry, characterized through a…
In black hole physics, inflationary cosmology, and quantum field theories, it is conjectured that the physical laws are subject to radical changes below the Planck length. Such changes are due to effects of quantum gravity believed to…
In this paper, we outline a new approach to quantum gravity; describing states for a bounded region of spacetime as eigenstates for two classes of physically plausible gedanken experiments. We end up with two complementary descriptions in…
A program was recently initiated to bridge the gap between the Planck scale physics described by loop quantum gravity and the familiar low energy world. We illustrate the conceptual problems and their solutions through a toy model: quantum…
Standard approaches to quantum gravity start with a pre-spacetime structure and attempt, in accordance with Bohr's correspondence principle, to recover the pseudo-Riemannian manifold in the low energy limit. These approaches assume there is…
Generic arguments lead to the idea that quantum gravity has a minimal length scale. A possible observational signal of such a minimal length scale is that photons should exhibit dispersion. In 2009 the observation of a short gamma ray burst…
A set of diverse but mutually consistent results obtained in different settings has spawned a new view of loop quantum gravity and its physical implications, based on the interplay of operator calculations and effective theory: Quantum…
We discuss the propagation of bosons (scalars, gauge fields and gravitons) at high energy in the context of the spectral action. Using heat kernel techniques, we find that in the high-momentum limit the quadratic part of the action does not…
We assume that particles are point-like objects even when not observed. We report on the consequences of our assumption within the realm of quantum theory. An important consequence is the necessity of vacuum fields to account for particle…
We propose a mathematically concrete way of modelling the suggestion that in quantum gravity the spacetime disappears, replacing it with a discrete approximation to the causal path space described as an object in a model category. One of…
Recently some hidden inconsistencies in high energy physics and cosmology have been articulated by several scholars. If we follow the usual description we get an unacceptably high cosmological constant as was noticed by Weinberg and others…
Consequences of new quantum spin perspective in quantum gravity are far-reaching. Results of this novel perspective in loop quantum gravity, i.e., the modification of the equation of geometrical operators such as the area and the volume…
The existence of a fundamental scale, a lower bound to any output of a position measurement, seems to be a model-independent feature of quantum gravity. In fact, different approaches to this theory lead to this result. The key ingredients…
The paper concerns the fictitious entanglement of the so-called ``singularities'' in problems, pertaining to quantum gravity, due, in point of fact, to the way we try to employ, in that context, differential geometry, the latter being…