Related papers: Spacetime foam
In general relativity, cosmology and quantum field theory, spacetime is assumed to be an orientable manifold endowed with a Lorentz metric that makes it spatially and temporally orientable. The question as to whether the laws of physics…
We propose a way to describe the origin of black hole entropy in the spin foam models of quantum gravity. This stimulates a new way to study the relation of spin foam models and loop quantum gravity.
We consider a spacetime foam model of the Schwarzschild horizon, where the horizon consists of Planck size black holes. According to our model the entropy of the Schwarzschild black hole is proportional to the area of its event horizon. It…
In our recently proposed quantum theory of gravity, the universe is made of `atoms' of space-time-matter (STM). Planck scale foam is composed of STM atoms with Planck length as their associated Compton wave-length. The quantum dispersion…
We survey indications from different branches of Physics that the fine scale structure of spacetime is not adequately described by a manifold. Based on the hints we accumulate, we propose a new structure, which we call a quantum topos. In…
In loop quantum gravity we now have a clear picture of the quantum geometry of space, thanks in part to the theory of spin networks. The concept of `spin foam' is intended to serve as a similar picture for the quantum geometry of spacetime.…
We here conjecture that two much-studied aspects of quantum gravity, dimensional flow and spacetime fuzziness, might be deeply connected. We illustrate the mechanism, providing first evidence in support of our conjecture, by working within…
Optical field fluctuations in self-defocusing media can be described in terms of sound waves in a 2D photon-fluid. It is shown that, while the background fluid couples with the usual flat metric, sound-like waves experience an effective…
Nerd abstract: Observational constraints on spacetime are reviewed, focusing on how the underlying physics (dark matter, dark energy, gravity) can be tested rather than assumed. Popular abstract: Space is not a boring static stage on which…
We investigate the thermodynamical properties of quantum fields in curved spacetime. Our approach is to consider quantum fields in curved spacetime as a quantum system undergoing an out-of-equilibrium transformation. The non-equilibrium…
Extra-galactic sources of photons have been used to constrain space-time quantum fluctuations in the Universe. In these proposals, the fundamental "fuzziness" of distance caused by space-time quantum fluctuations has been directly…
In papers on primary state diffusion (Percival 1994, 1995), numerical estimates suggested that fluctuations in the space-time metric on the scale of the Planck time (10^-44s) could be detected using atom interferometers. In this paper we…
We study the quantum motion of null shells in the quantum space-time of a black hole in loop quantum gravity. We treat the shells as test fields and use an effective dynamics for the propagation equations. The shells propagate through the…
Temporal coherence is a fundamental property of macroscopic quantum systems, such as lasers in optics and Bose-Einstein condensates in atomic gases and it is a crucial issue for interferometry applications with light or matter waves.…
In Phys. Rev. D77 (2008) 105001, we have studied decoherence models for flavour oscillations in four-dimensional stochastically fluctuating space times and discussed briefly the sensitivity of current terrestrial and astrophysical neutrino…
In addressing the cosmological constant problem, we propose that the discrepancy between the theoretical and observed values can be ascribed to the inherent uncertainty in the spacetime metric. Mach's principle, which posits that mass…
Suppose we assume that (a) information about a black hole is encoded in its Hawking radiation and (b) causality is not violated to leading order in gently curved spacetime. Then we argue that spacetime cannot just be described as a manifold…
We interpret Minkowski black holes as world-sheet {\it spikes } which are related by world-sheet { \it duality} to {\it vortices } that correspond to Euclidean black holes. These world-sheet defects induce defects in the gauge fields of the…
All gauge theories need ``something fixed'' even as ``something changes.'' Underlying the implementation of these ideas all major physical theories make indispensable use of an elaborately designed spacetime model as the ``something…
The hilbert-space structure of quantum mechanics is related to the causal structure of space-time. The usual measurement hypotheses apparently preclude nonlinear or stochastic quantum evolution. By admitting a difference in the calculus of…