Related papers: Phenomenological description of space-time foam
Planck-scale physics challenges the classical smooth-spacetime picture by introducing quantum fluctuations that imply a nontrivial spacetime microstructure. We present a framework that encodes these fluctuations by promoting local scale…
Quantum-gravity effects may introduce relevant consequences for the propagation and interaction of high energy cosmic rays particles. Assuming the space-time foamy structure results in an intrinsic uncertainty of energy and momentum of…
Quantum gravity is quite elusive at the experimental level; thus a lot of interest has been raised by recent searches for quantum gravity effects in the propagation of light from distant sources, like gamma ray bursters and active galactic…
Progress in the new information-theoretic process physics is reported in which the link to the phenomenology of general relativity is made. In process physics the fundamental assumption is that reality is to be modelled as self-organising…
We show that when the gravitational field is treated quantum-mechanically, it induces fluctuations -- noise -- in the lengths of the arms of gravitational wave detectors. The characteristics of the noise depend on the quantum state of the…
Spacetime foam manifests itself in a variety of ways. It has some attributes of a turbulent fluid. It is the source of the holographic principle. Cosmologically it may play a role in explaining why the energy density has the critical value,…
Schemes of gravitationally induced decoherence are being actively investigated as possible mechanisms for the quantum-to-classical transition. Here, we introduce a decoherence process due to quantum gravity effects. We assume a foamy…
One of the biggest unsolved problems in physics is the unification of quantum mechanics and general relativity. The lack of experimental guidance has made the issue extremely evasive, though various attempts have been made to relate the…
Spacetime geometry is treated as a fluctuating, stochastic quantum system allowing an effective quantum gravity solution to the cosmological constant problem. A Focker-Planck equation for the probability density of spacetime metric…
Due to quantum fluctuations, spacetime is foamy on small scales. The degree of foaminess is found to be consistent with the holographic principle. One way to detect spacetime foam is to look for halos in the images of distant quasars.…
Quantum gravity "foam", among its various generic Lorentz non-invariant effects, would cause neutrino mixing. It is shown here that, if the foam is manifested as a nonrenormalizable effect at scale M, the oscillation length generically…
We consider a model in which the quantum fluctuation can be controlled and show that the system responds to a spatially periodic external field at zero temperature. This signifies the occurrence of spatial stochastic resonance where the…
A handful of recent papers has been devoted to proposals of experiments capable of testing some candidate quantum-gravity phenomena. These lecture notes emphasize those aspects that are most relevant to the questions that come to mind when…
Spacetime foam can be modeled in terms of nonlocal effective interactions in a classical nonfluctuating background. Then, the density matrix for the low-energy fields evolves, in the weak-coupling approximation, according to a master…
The observations of photons from the BL Lac object Mk501 with energies above 10 TeV and of cosmic rays with energies above the GZK threshold appear to be inconsistent with conventional theories. Remarkably, among the recent new-physics…
We discuss the interplay of wave packet decoherence and decoherence induced by quantum gravity via interactions with spacetime foam for high energy astrophysical neutrinos. In this context we point out a compelling consequence of the…
We carry out a theoretical investigation on the collective dynamics of an ensemble of correlated atoms, subject to both vacuum fluctuations of spacetime and stochastic gravitational waves. A general approach is taken with the derivation of…
The theory of cosmological perturbations has become a cornerstone of modern quantitative cosmology since it is the framework which provides the link between the models of the very early Universe such as the inflationary Universe scenario…
In this review, I discuss briefly stringent tests of Lorentz-violating quantum space-time foam models inspired from String/Brane theories, provided by studies of high energy Photons from intense celestial sources, such as Active Galactic…
The power spectrum of quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field produced by an elementary particle is determined. It is found that in a wide range of practically important frequencies the power spectrum of fluctuations exhibits an…