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A clock synchronization thought experiment is modeled by a diffeomorphism invariant "time delay" observable. In a sense, this observable probes the causal structure of the ambient Lorentzian spacetime. Thus, upon quantization, it is…
Averaging in general relativity is a complicated operation, due to the general covariance of the theory and the non-linearity of Einstein's equations. The latter of these ensures that smoothing spacetime over cosmological scales does not…
During the inflationary phase of the early universe, quantum fluctuations in the vacuum generate particles as they stretch beyond the Hubble length. These fluctuations are thought to result in the density fluctuations and gravitational…
Spectrographs nominally contain a degree of quasi-static optical aberrations resulting from the quality of manufactured component surfaces, imperfect alignment, design residuals, thermal effects, and other other associated phenomena…
We study a model for quantum lightcone fluctuations in which vacuum fluctuations of the electric field and of the squared electric field in a nonlinear dielectric material produce variations in the flight times of probe pulses. When this…
Semiclassical Einstein-Langevin equations for arbitrary small metric perturbations conformally coupled to a massless quantum scalar field in a spatially flat cosmological background are derived. Use is made of the fact that for this problem…
Inflation creates large-scale cosmological density perturbations that are characterized by an isotropic, homogeneous, and Gaussian random distribution about a locally flat background. Even in a flat universe, the spatial curvature measured…
Quantum fluctuations of a nonminimally coupled scalar field in D-dimensional homogeneous and isotropic background are calculated within the operator formalism in curved models with time evolutions of the scale factor that allow smooth…
We study how the effects of quantum corrections lead to notions of irreversibility and clustering in quantum field theory. In particular, we consider the virtual ``charge" distribution generated by quantum corrections and adopt for it a…
At the level of the Planck scale, the spacetime metric has to be considered a quantum variable. Conformal quantum fluctuations of the metric tensor are studied here. They lead to an extra term in the Einstein equations which can be…
It has been noted (Lieu & Hillmann, 2002) that the cumulative affect of Planck-scale phenomenology, or the structure of space-time at extremely small scales, can be lead to the loss of phase of radiation emitted at large distances from the…
The Hopfield model in a transverse field is investigated in order to clarify how quantum fluctuations affect the macroscopic behavior of neural networks. Using the Trotter decomposition and the replica method, we find that the $\alpha$ (the…
In the semi-classical regime, quantum fluctuations embedded in a Riemannian spacetime can be effectively recast as classical back reactions and manifest themselves in the form of non-minimal couplings between matter and curvature. In this…
Gravitational lensing affects observed cosmological correlation functions because observed images do not coincide with true source locations. We treat this universal effect in a general way here, deriving a single formula that can be used…
The effect of gravitational microlensing on the intensity of gravitational radiation as it propagates through an inhomogeneous medium containing small-scale structure is considered. Lensing by both stars and a power law spectrum of density…
We explore the cosmological implications of a mechanism found in several approaches to quantum-gravity, whereby the spectral dimension of spacetime runs from the standard value of 4 in the infrared (IR) to a smaller value in the ultraviolet…
The method of photon distribution function (PDF) is used to study fluctuations of light beams propagating through a turbulent atmosphere. Our analysis concerns the regime of saturated fluctuations. The focus is on the phenomena of beam…
We present a formalism to discern the effects of fluctuations of the spacetime metric on electromagnetic radiation. The formalism works via the measurement of electromagnetic field correlations, while allowing a clear assessment of the…
Dynamical systems in nature such as fluid flows, heart beat patterns, rainfall variability, stock market price fluctuations, etc. exhibit selfsimilar fractal fluctuations on all scales in space and time. Power spectral analyses of fractal…
The gravitational field equations on cosmological scales are obtained by averaging the Einstein field equations of general relativity. By assuming spatial homogeneity and isotropy on the largest scales, the local inhomogeneities affect the…