Related papers: Discrete Hilbert Space, the Born Rule, and Quantum…
We discuss some general properties of quantum gravity in De Sitter space. It has been argued that the Hilbert space is of finite dimension. This suggests a macroscopic argument that General Relativity cannot be quantized -- unless it is…
D. Wallace has tried to use decoherence to solve the preferred basis problem of Everettian Quantum Mechanics, and this solution lays the foundation for his proof of the Born rule. But this is a circular argument, as approximations used in…
Although cosmic expansion at very small distances is usually dismissed as entirely inconsequential, these extraordinarily small effects may in fact have a real and significant influence on our world. A calculation suggests that the minute…
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…
Hilbert spaces in theories of gravity are notoriously subtle due to the Hamiltonian constraints, particularly regarding the inner product. To demystify this subject, we review and extend a collection of ideas in canonical gravity, and…
The "problem of time" in canonical quantum gravity refers to the difficulties involved in defining a Hilbert space structure on states -- and local observables on this Hilbert space -- for a theory in which the spacetime metric is treated…
A "quantum-first" approach to gravity is described, where rather than quantizing general relativity, one seeks to formulate the physics of gravity within a quantum-mechanical framework with suitably general postulates. Important guides are…
I. The arena of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory is the abstract, unobserved and unobservable, M-dimensional formal Hilbert space [not equal to] spacetime. II. The arena of observations and, more generally, of all events (i.e.…
Most approaches towards a quantum theory of gravitation indicate the existence of a minimal length scale of the order of the Planck length. Quantum mechanical models incorporating such an intrinsic length scale call for a deformation of…
We study de Sitter JT gravity in the canonical formulation to illustrate constructions of Hilbert spaces in quantum gravity, which is challenging due to the Hamiltonian constraints. The key ideas include representing states as "invariants"…
Using a particular Hilbert space representation of minimum-length deformed quantum mechanics, we show that the resolution of the wave-function singularities for strongly attractive potentials, as well as cosmological singularity in the…
Since the advent of quantum mechanics we have mainly been concerned with its predictions from the perspective of an external observer. This is in strong contrast to the theory of general relativity, where the physics is governed by the…
We show that the introduction of a minimal length in the context of non-commutative spacetime gives rise (after some considerations) to higher-order theories. We then explicitly demonstrate how these higher-derivative theories appear as a…
In this paper, we clarify a foundational loose end affecting the phenomenological approach to quantum gravity centered around the generalization of Heisenberg uncertainty principle. This misconception stems from a series of recently…
So far, none of attempts to quantize gravity has led to a satisfactory model that not only describe gravity in the realm of a quantum world, but also its relation to elementary particles and other fundamental forces. Here, we outline the…
A temporally varying discretization often features in discrete gravitational systems and appears in lattice field theory models subject to a coarse graining or refining dynamics. To better understand such discretization changing dynamics in…
It is commonly accepted that the combination of quantum mechanics and general relativity gives rise to the emergence of a minimum uncertainty both in space and time. The arguments that support this conclusion are mainly based on…
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…
We extend significantly previous works on the Hilbert space representations of the Generalized Uncertainty Principle (GUP) in 3+1 dimensions of the form $[X_i,P_j] = i F_{ij}$ where $ F_{ij} = f(P^2) \delta_{ij} + g(P^2) P_i P_j $ for any…
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,…