Quantum metric for null separated events and spacetime atoms

DOI10.1088/1361-6382/AB0A40MaRDI QIDQ3380464zbMATHOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Publication date 28 September 2021

Published in Classical and Quantum Gravity (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.01275

quantum gravity emergence of spacetime quantum metric

Local differential geometry of Lorentz metrics, indefinite metrics (53B30) Quantization of the gravitational field (83C45) Methods of noncommutative geometry in general relativity (83C65)

Abstract: Recently, a proposal has been made to figure out the expected discrete nature of spacetime at the smallest scales in terms of atoms of spacetime, capturing their effects through a scalar

h o

, related to their density, function of the point

P

and vector

v^{a}

at

P

. This has been done in the Euclideanized space one obtains through analytic continuation from Lorentzian sector at

P

.

h o

has been defined in terms of a peculiar `effective' metric

q_{a b}

, of quantum origin, introduced for spacelike/timelike separated events. This metric stems from requiring that

q_{a b}

coincides with

g_{a b}

at large (space/time) distances, but gives finite distance in the coincidence limit, and implements directly this way one single, very basic aspect associated to any quantum description of spacetime: length quantization. Since the latter appears a quite common feature in the available quantum descriptions of gravity, this quantum metric

q_{a b}

can be suspected to have a rather general scope and to be re-derivable (and cross-checkable) in various specific quantum models of gravity, even markedly different one from the other. This work reports on an attempt to introduce a definition of

h o

not through the Euclidean but directly in the Lorentz sector. This turns out to be not a so trivial task, essentially because of the null case, meaning when

v^{a}

is null, as in this case it seems we lack even a concept of

q_{a b}

. A notion for the quantum metric

q_{a b}

for null separated events is then proposed and an expression for it is derived. From it, a formula for

h o

is deduced, which turns out to coincide with what obtained through analytic continuation. This virtually completes the task of having quantum expressions of any kind of spacetime intervals, with, moreover,

h o

defined directly in terms of them (not in the Euclideanized space).

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