Related papers: Zooming in on discrete space
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…
By proposing a paradox between the impossibility of superluminal signal transfer and the normalization condition of wavefunctions, we predict that when a change happens to the conditions that determining the status of a quantum system, the…
One of the main challenges in physics today is to merge quantum theory and the theory of general relativity into a unified framework. Various approaches towards developing such a theory of quantum gravity are pursued, but the lack of…
Inspired by previous work in 2+1 dimensional quantum gravity, which found evidence for a discretization of time in the quantum theory, we reexamine the issue for the case of pure Lorentzian gravity with vanishing cosmological constant and…
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…
We study the quantization of geometry in the presence of a cosmological constant, using a discretiza- tion with constant-curvature simplices. Phase space turns out to be compact and the Hilbert space finite dimensional for each link. Not…
We show that vacuum fluctuations of the stress-energy tensor in two-dimensional dilaton gravity lead to a sharp focusing of light cones near the Planck scale, effectively breaking space up into a large number of causally disconnected…
A model quantum system is proposed to describe position states of a massive body in flat space on large scales, excluding all standard quantum and gravitational degrees of freedom. The model is based on standard quantum spin commutators,…
We attempt to find new symmetries in the space-time structure, leading to a modified gravitation at large length scales, which provides the foundations of a quantum gravity at very low energies. This search begins by considering a unified…
We consider gravitational scattering of point particles with Planckian centre-of-mass energy and fixed low momentum transfers in the framework of general relativity and dilaton gravity. The geometry around the particles are modelled by…
Generalized uncertainty principles are able to serve as useful descriptions of some of the phenomenology of quantum gravity effects, providing an intuitive grasp on non-trivial space-time structures such as a fundamental discreteness of…
A deformation of special relativistic kinematics (possible signal of a theory of quantum gravity at low energies) leads to a modification of the notion of spacetime. At the classical level, this modification is required when one considers a…
Contrary to what is often stated, a fundamental spacetime discreteness need not contradict Lorentz invariance. A causal set's discreteness is in fact locally Lorentz invariant, and we recall the reasons why. For illustration, we introduce a…
Inspired by the work of Wheeler among others, we have studied the problem of quantum measurements of space-time distances by applying the general principles of quantum mechanics as well as those of general relativity. Contrary to the…
Several lines of evidence suggest that quantum gravity at very short distances may behave effectively as a two-dimensional theory. I summarize these hints, and offer an additional argument based on the strong-coupling limit of the…
A proposed experiment to test whether space is discretized [J. D. Bekenstein, Phys. Rev. D 86, 124040 (2012); Found. Phys. 44, 452 (2014)] is based on the supposed impossibility of an incident photon causing a displacement of a transparent…
The often-asked question whether space-time is discrete or continuous may not be the right question to ask: Mathematically, it is possible that space-time possesses the differentiability properties of manifolds as well as the ultraviolet…
In this work, the relativistic phenomena of Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction and time dilation are derived using a modified distance formula that is appropriate for discrete space. This new distance formula is different than the Pythagorean…
The traditional formulation of the ultimate goal of physics (in the narrower sense of axiomatic theory) involves the derivation of physical laws from first principles. Though, such option doesn't make things easier since the task of the…
Fermion systems in discrete space-time are introduced as a model for physics on the Planck scale. We set up a variational principle which describes a non-local interaction of all fermions. This variational principle is symmetric under…