English

Topology and geometry cannot be measured by an operator measurement in quantum gravity

High Energy Physics - Theory 2017-07-05 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

In the context of LLM geometries, we show that superpositions of classical coherent states of trivial topology can give rise to new classical limits where the topology of spacetime has changed. We argue that this phenomenon implies that neither the topology nor the geometry of spacetime can be the result of an operator measurement. We address how to reconcile these statements with the usual semiclassical analysis of low energy effective field theory for gravity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1605.06166,
  title  = {Topology and geometry cannot be measured by an operator measurement in quantum gravity},
  author = {David Berenstein and Alexandra Miller},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1605.06166},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

4 pages, 2 figures. v2: added references

R2 v1 2026-06-22T14:05:12.032Z