English

The Small Scale Structure of Spacetime

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2010-09-07 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

Several lines of evidence hint that quantum gravity at very small distances may be effectively two-dimensional. I summarize the evidence for such ``spontaneous dimensional reduction,'' and suggest an additional argument coming from the strong-coupling limit of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. If this description proves to be correct, it suggests a fascinating relationship between small-scale quantum spacetime and the behavior of cosmologies near an asymptotically silent singularity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1009.1136,
  title  = {The Small Scale Structure of Spacetime},
  author = {Steven Carlip},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1009.1136},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

14 pages, two eps figures; to appear in Foundations of Space and Time, edited by George Ellis, Jeff Murugan, Amanda Weltman (Cambridge University Press)

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