Exotic spaces in quantum gravity: I. Euclidean quantum gravity in seven dimensions

DOI10.1088/0264-9381/16/7/319zbMATH Open0942.83029arXivgr-qc/9903086OpenAlexW2071641860MaRDI QIDQ4699994FDOQ4699994

Authors: K. Schleich, D. M. Witt 

Publication date: 18 November 1999

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

Abstract: It is well known that in four or more dimensions, there exist exotic manifolds; manifolds that are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to each other. More precisely, exotic manifolds are the same topological manifold but have inequivalent differentiable structures. This situation is in contrast to the uniqueness of the differentiable structure on topological manifolds in one, two and three dimensions. As exotic manifolds are not diffeomorphic, one can argue that quantum amplitudes for gravity formulated as functional integrals should include a sum over not only physically distinct geometries and topologies but also inequivalent differentiable structures. But can the inclusion of exotic manifolds in such sums make a significant contribution to these quantum amplitudes? This paper will demonstrate that it will. Simply connected exotic Einstein manifolds with positive curvature exist in seven dimensions. Their metrics are found numerically; they are shown to have volumes of the same order of magnitude. Their contribution to the semiclassical evaluation of the partition function for Euclidean quantum gravity in seven dimensions is evaluated and found to be nontrivial. Consequently, inequivalent differentiable structures should be included in the formulation of sums over histories for quantum gravity.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9903086

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zbMATH Keywords

partition functionEuclidean quantum gravityquantum amplitudesexotic Einstein manifoldspath integral in quantum gravitysemiclassical evaluation

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Quantization of the gravitational field (83C45) Kaluza-Klein and other higher-dimensional theories (83E15)

Cited In (7)

• Exotic smoothness in four dimensions and Euclidean quantum gravity
• Exotic differentiable structures and general relativity
• Exotic smoothness and quantum gravity
• Generalized sums over histories for quantum gravity. I: Smooth conifolds
• ON WEAK II-REGULARITY AND THE SIMPLICITY OF PRIME FACTOR RINGS
• Exotic spheres' metrics and solutions via Kaluza-Klein techniques
• Exotic spaces and quantum gravity

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