Related papers: Causal Sets and an Emerging Continuum
Causal set theory is a discrete model of spacetime that retains a notion of causal structure. We understand how to construct causal sets that approximate a given spacetime, but most causal sets are not at all manifold-like, and must be…
In order to construct a quantum theory of gravity, we may have to abandon certain assumptions we were making. In particular, the concept of spacetime as a continuum substratum is questioned. Causal Sets is an attempt to construct a quantum…
The ideas of spacetime discreteness and causality are important in several of the popular approaches to quantum gravity. But if discreteness is accepted as an initial assumption, conflict with Lorentz invariance can be a consequence. The…
This paper presents an brief review of some recent work on the causal set approach to quantum gravity. Causal sets are a discretisation of spacetime that allow the symmetries of GR to be preserved in the continuum approximation. One…
The causal set approach to quantum gravity embodies the concepts of causality and discreteness. This article explores some foundational and conceptual issues within causal set theory.
The Causal Set approach to quantum gravity asserts that spacetime, at its smallest length scale, has a discrete structure. This discrete structure takes the form of a locally finite order relation, where the order, corresponding with the…
Causality among events is widely recognized as a most fundamental structure of spacetime, and causal sets have been proposed as discrete models of the latter in the context of quantum gravity theories, notably in the Causal Set Programme.…
More often than not, recently popular structuralist interpretations of physical theories leave the central concept of a structure insufficiently precisified. The incipient causal sets approach to quantum gravity offers a paradigmatic case…
This paper provides a thorough introduction to the causal set hypothesis aimed at students, and other interested persons, with some knowledge of general relativity and nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. I elucidate the arguments for why the…
Central to the development of any new theory is the investigation of the observable consequences of the theory. In the search for quantum gravity, research in phenomenology has been dominated by models violating Lorentz invariance (LI) --…
This article presents the most interesting philosophical issues as they arise in causal set theory. The first concerns the apparent disappearance of spacetime at the fundamental level. It shows how the looming empirical incoherence is…
Causal sets are locally finite, partially ordered sets (posets), which are considered as discrete models of spacetimes. On the one hand, causal sets corresponding to a spacetime manifold are commonly generated with a random process called…
The representations of the world around in physics built with help of causality are analyzed and seems incomplete. The observer's causal representations form a closed logical system, i.e. the compact group related to cause-effect chains.…
There are several indications (from different approaches) that Spacetime at the Plank Scale could be discrete. One approach to Quantum Gravity that takes this most seriously is the Causal Sets Approach. In this approach spacetime is…
Causal sets are particular partially ordered sets which have been proposed as a basic model for discrete space-time in quantum gravity. We show that the class C of all countable past-finite causal sets contains a unique causal set (U,<)…
There are numerous indications that a discrete substratum underlies continuum spacetime. Any fundamentally discrete approach to quantum gravity must provide some prescription for how continuum properties emerge from the underlying…
While it is possible to build causal sets that approximate spacetime manifolds, most causal sets are not at all manifold-like. We show that a Lorentzian path integral with the Einstein-Hilbert action has a phase in which one large class of…
Starting from certain causality conditions and a discrete form of general covariance, we derive a very general family of classically stochastic, sequential growth dynamics for causal sets. The resulting theories provide a relatively…
Unlike the relativity theory it seeks to replace, causal set theory has been interpreted to leave space for a substantive, though perhaps 'localized', form of 'becoming'. The possibility of fundamental becoming is nourished by the fact that…
In the causal set approach to quantum gravity the spacetime continuum arises as an approximation to a fundamentally discrete substructure, the causal set, which is a locally finite partially ordered set. The causal set paradigm was…