Related papers: Quantum State and Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking in…
Kinematical and dynamical mechanisms leading to the spontaneous breaking of space-time symmetries are described. The symmetries affected are space and time translations, space rotations, scale and conformal transformations. Applications are…
A simple self gravitating system --- a thin spherical shell of charged pressureless matter --- is naively quantized as a test case of quantum gravitational collapse. The model is interpreted in terms of an inner product on the positive…
Instabilities of equilibrium quantum mechanics are common and well-understood. They are manifested for example in phase transitions, where a quantum system becomes so sensitive to perturbations that a symmetry can be spontaneously broken.…
Spontaneous symmetry breaking plays a fundamental role in many areas of condensed matter and particle physics. A fundamental problem in ecology is the elucidation of the mechanisms responsible for biodiversity and stability. Neutral theory,…
We present a qualitatively new mechanism for dynamical spontaneous breakdown of supersymmetry. Specifically, we construct a modified formulation of standard minimal N=1 supergravity. The modification is based on an idea worked out in detail…
Spontaneous symmetry breaking is a phenomenon of an alteration of a state symmetry without a change in the system symmetry. A transition from a state with unbroken symmetry to a state with broken symmetry leads to a qualitative change in…
We discuss a model where a spontaneous quantum collapse is induced by the gravitational interaction, treated classically. Its dynamics couples the standard wave function of a system with the Bohmian positions of its particles, which are…
The concepts of symmetry, symmetry breaking and gauge symmetries are discussed, their operational meaning being displayed by the observables {\em and} the (physical) states. For infinitely extended systems the states fall into physically…
The gravity-scalar field system in spherical symmetry provides a natural setting for exploring gravitational collapse and its aftermath in quantum gravity. In a canonical approach, we give constructions of the constraint and Hamiltonian…
Symmetry-breaking transitions are a well-understood phenomenon of closed quantum systems in quantum optics, condensed matter, and high energy physics. However, symmetry breaking in open systems is less thoroughly understood, in part due to…
Any quantum-mechanical system possesses a U(1) gerbe naturally defined on configuration space. Acting on Feynman's kernel exp(iS/h), this U(1) symmetry allows one to arbitrarily pick the origin for the classical action S, on a…
Symmetries are a key concept to connect mathematical elegance with physical insight. We consider measurement assemblages in quantum mechanics and show how their symmetry can be described by means of the so-called discrete bundles. It turns…
We explore the symmetry reduced form of a non-perturbative solution to the constraints of quantum gravity corresponding to quantum de Sitter space. The system has a remarkably precise analogy with the non-relativistic formulation of a…
Modern, state of the art nanomechanical devices are capable of creating spatial superpositions that are massive enough to begin to experimentally access the quantum to classical crossover, and thus force us to consider the possible ways in…
We explain how General Relativity with a cosmological constant arises as a broken symmetry phase of a BF theory. In particular we show how to treat de Sitter and anti-de Sitter cases simultaneously. This is then used to formulate a…
The physical world is marked by the phenomenon of spontaneous broken symmetry (SBS) i.e. where the state of a system is assymmetric with respect to the symmetry principles that govern its dynamics. For material systems this is not…
Quantum field theory (QFT) on fractal spacetimes is a program aiming at quantizing the gravitational interaction consistently at all energy scales thanks to an intrinsically or dynamically induced multiscale or multifractal-like spacetime…
The advantages and disadvantages of some pedagogical non-relativistic quantum-mechanical models, used to illustrate spontaneous symmetry breakdown, are discussed. A simple quantum-mechanical toy model (a spinor on the line, subject to a…
Spontaneous symmetry breaking occurs when the underlying laws of a physical system are symmetric, but the vacuum state chosen by the system is not. The (3+1)d $\phi^4$ theory is relatively simple compared to other more complex theories,…
A central goal in condensed matter and modern atomic physics is the exploration of many-body quantum phases and the universal characteristics of quantum phase transitions in so far as they differ from those established for thermal phase…