Related papers: Phenomenological Quantum Gravity
The claim that at the so-called Planck scale our current physics breaks down and a new theory of quantum gravity is required is ubiquitous, but the evidence is shakier than the confidence of those assertions warrants. In this paper, I…
The relevance of the Planck scale to a theory of quantum gravity has become a worryingly little examined assumption that goes unchallenged in the majority of research in this area. However, in all scientific honesty, the significance of…
Planck scale physics represents a future challenge, located between particle physics and general relativity. The Planck scale marks a threshold beyond which the old description of spacetime breaks down and conceptually new phenomena must…
Quantum gravity is known to be mostly a kind of metaphysical speculation. In this brief essay, we try to argue that, although still extremely difficult to reach, observational signatures can in fact be expected. The early universe is an…
In the last years a general consensus has emerged that, contrary to intuition, quantum-gravity effects may have relevant consequences for the propagation and interaction of high energy particles. This has given birth to the field of…
Quantum gravity was born as that branch of modern theoretical physics that tries to unify its guiding principles, i.e., quantum mechanics and general relativity. Nowadays it is providing new insight into the unification of all fundamental…
The idea that quantum gravity manifestations would be associated with a violation of Lorentz invariance is very strongly bounded and faces serious theoretical challenges. Other related ideas seem to be drowning in interpretational…
We offer a brief survey of existent and planned experimental tests for quantum gravity. First, we outline the questions we wish to address, and then introduce some of the phenomenological models that are currently used in quantum gravity,…
Though the Planck scale is encountered in Quantum SuperString Theory and Quantum Gravity, it is the Compton scale of elementary particles which is encountered in the physical world. An explanation for this is given in terms of Brownian…
I outline motivations for believing that important quantum gravity effects lie beyond the Planck scale at both higher energies and longer distances and times. These motivations arise in part from the study of ultra-high energy scattering,…
The search for a quantum theory of gravity has been one of the main aims of theoretical physics for many years by now. However the efforts in this direction have been often hampered by the lack of experimental/observational tests able to…
Quantum gravity phenomenology has been historically regarded as a difficult endeavour, due to the apparent scarcity of phenomena involving the required scales of length (Planck length $l_P$) and energy (Planck energy $E_P$). It was…
Research during the last decade demonstrates that effects originating on the Planck scale are currently being tested in multiple observational contexts. In this review we discuss quantum gravity phenomenological models and their possible…
Quantum gravity places entirely new challenges on the formulation of a consistent theory as well as on an extraction of potentially observable effects. Quantum corrections due to the gravitational field are commonly expected to be tiny…
In this proceedings for the MG14 conference, we discuss the construction of a phenomenology of Planck-scale effects in curved spacetimes, underline a few open issues and describe some perspectives for the future of this research line.
A satisfactory theory of quantum gravity may necessitate a drastic modification of our perception of space-time, by giving it a foamy structure at distances comparable to the Planck length. It is argued in this essay that the experimental…
We discuss the generic phenomenology of quantum gravity and, in particular, argue that the observable effects of quantum gravity, associated with new, extended, non-local, non-particle-like quanta, and accompanied by a dynamical…
I briefly review some scenarios for the role of the Planck length in quantum gravity. In particular, I examine the differences between the schemes in which quantum gravity is expected to introduce a maximum acceleration and the schemes in…
The search for a theory of quantum gravity faces two great challenges: the incredibly small scales of the Planck length and time, and the possibility that the observed constants of nature are in part the result of random processes. A…
I argue that the linearity of quantum mechanics is an emergent feature at the Planck scale, along with the manifold structure of space-time. In this regime the usual causality violation objections to nonlinearity do not apply, and nonlinear…