Velocity polytopes of periodic graphs and a no-go theorem for digital physics

DOI10.1016/J.DISC.2013.02.010MaRDI QIDQ389478zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Tobias Fritz

Publication date 20 January 2014

Published in Discrete Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1109.1963

zbMATH Keywords

cycles in graphsdigital physicsgain graphperiodic graphperiodic netvoltage graph

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Paths and cycles (05C38)

Abstract: A periodic graph in dimension $d$ is a directed graph with a free action of $$ with only finitely many orbits. It can conveniently be represented in terms of an associated finite graph with weights in $$, corresponding to a $$-bundle with connection. Here we use the weight sums along cycles in this associated graph to construct a certain polytope in $R^d$, which we regard as a geometrical invariant associated to the periodic graph. It is the unit ball of a norm on $R^d$ describing the large-scale geometry of the graph. It has a physical interpretation as the set of attainable velocities of a particle on the graph which can hop along one edge per timestep. Since a polytope necessarily has distinguished directions, there is no periodic graph for which this velocity set is isotropic. In the context of classical physics, this can be viewed as a no-go theorem for the emergence of an isotropic space from a discrete structure.

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Cited in

(5)

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