Related papers: Synge's World function and the quantum spacetime
Theories of quantum gravity generically presuppose or predict that the reality underlying relativistic spacetimes they are describing is significantly non-spatiotemporal. On pain of empirical incoherence, approaches to quantum gravity must…
If quantum gravity respects the principles of quantum mechanics, suitably generalized, it may be that a more viable approach to the theory is through identifying the relevant quantum structures rather than by quantizing classical spacetime.…
One of the deepest insights from the general theory of relativity is the relational nature of spacetime. While it is a generally agreed on that the nature of spacetime must be drastically different at the Planck scale, it has been a common…
The quest for a consistent theory for quantum gravity is one of the most challenging problems in theoretical high-energy physics. An often-used approach is to describe the gravitational degrees of freedom by the metric tensor or related…
Several other factors, besides the intrinsic local geometry, contribute to give a meaning to a space-time model. The simplest example comes from comparing Minkowski's and Milne's model, that both have a null Riemann tensor. We add to these…
I take non-locality to be the Michaelson Morley experiment of the 21st Century, assume its universal validity, and try to derive its consequences. Spacetime, with its locality, cannot be fundamental, but emergent from entangled coherent…
Theories of emergent gravity have established a deep connection between entropy and the geometry of spacetime by looking at the latter through a thermodynamic lens. In this framework, the macroscopic properties of gravity arise in a…
We investigate the behaviour of quantum fields coupled to a spacetime geometry exhibiting finite regions of Euclidean (Riemannian) signature. Although from a gravity perspective this situation might seem somewhat far fetched, we will…
The essence of the method of physics is inseparably connected with the problem of interplay between local and global properties of the universe. In the present paper we discuss this interplay as it is present in three major departments of…
Newtonian gravity arises as the nonrelativistic, static, weak-field limit of some Lorentzian spacetime geometry solving the generally covariant Einstein equations for a given matter field configuration. Spacetime geometry has a local…
The description of the universe evolving in time according to general relativity is given in comparison with the quantum description of the same universe in terms of semiclassical wave functions. The spacetime geometry is determined by the…
Space-time--time is a natural hybrid of Kaluza's five-dimensional geometry and Weyl's conformal space-time geometry. Translations along the secondary time dimension produce the electromagnetic gauge transformations of Kaluza--Klein theory…
It is possible to describe a universal scalar field of time but not a universal coordinate of time and to attribute its non-geodesic alignment to the electromagnetic phenomena. A very surprising outcome is that not only mass generates…
In any quantum theory of gravity, it is of the utmost importance to recover the limit of quantum theory in an external spacetime. In quantum geometrodynamics (quantization of general relativity in the Schr\"odinger picture), this leads in…
The Schwarzschild exterior space-time is conformally related to a direct product space-time, $\mathcal{M}_2 \times S_2$, where $\mathcal{M}_2$ is a two-dimensional space-time. This direct product structure arises naturally when considering…
We consider a simplified model of double scaled SYK (DSSYK) in which the Hamiltonian is the position operator of the Harmonic oscillator. This model captures the high temperature limit of DSSYK but could also be defined as a quantum theory…
Collapse models possibly suggest the need for a better understanding of the structure of space-time. We argue that physical space, and space-time, are emergent features of the Universe, which arise as a result of dynamical collapse of the…
Two questions are investigated by looking successively at classical mechanics, special relativity, and relativistic gravity: first, how is space related with spacetime? The proposed answer is that each given reference fluid, that is a…
Recently, it was shown that the quantum effects of the matter, could be used to determine the conformal degree of freedom of the space-time metric. So both gravity and quantum are geometrical features. Gravity determines the causal…
Within the twistorial parametrization of Loop Quantum Gravity we investigate the consequences of choosing a spacelike normal vector in the linear simplicity constraints. The amplitudes for the $SU(2)$ boundary states of Loop Quantum…