Simple indicators for Lorentzian causets

DOI10.1088/0264-9381/33/18/185004MaRDI QIDQ2832535zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Alexander Lamb, Tommaso Bolognesi

Publication date 11 November 2016

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

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1407.1649

zbMATH Keywords

causal setdiscrete models of spacetimediscrete spacetime automataemergenceLorentzian manifoldpseudo-randomnessspecial relativity

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Philosophical and critical aspects of logic and foundations (03A05) Ordered sets and their cofinalities; pcf theory (03E04) Applications of statistics to physics (62P35) Special relativity (83A05) Lattice gravity, Regge calculus and other discrete methods in general relativity and gravitational theory (83C27)

Abstract: Several classes of directed acyclic graphs have been investigated in the last two decades, in the context of the Causal Set Program, in search for good discrete models of spacetime. We introduce some statistical indicators that can be used for comparing these graphs and for assessing their closeness to the ideal Lorentzian causal sets ('causets') -- those obtained by sprinkling points in a Lorentzian manifold. In particular, with the reversed triangular inequality of Special Relativity in mind, we introduce 'longest/shortest path plots', an easily implemented tool to visually detect the extent to which a generic causet matches the wide range of path lengths between events of Lorentzian causets. This tool can attribute some degree of 'Lorentzianity' - in particular 'non-locality' - also to causets that are not (directly) embeddable and that, due to some regularity in their structure, would not pass the key test for Lorentz invariance: the absence of preferred reference frames. We compare the discussed indicators and use them for assessing causets both of stochastic and of deterministic, algorithmic origin, finding examples of the latter that behave optimally w.r.t. our longest/shortest path plots.

Recommendations

• Discrete spacetime: a web of chains
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• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 970161

Cited in

(9)

• What is the dimension of citation space?
• The causal set approach to quantum gravity
• Emergence of space-time from topologically homogeneous causal networks
• Proper time and Minkowski structure on causal graphs
• Discreteness without symmetry breaking: a theorem
• LOTOS-like composition of Boolean nets and causal set construction
• Discrete spacetime: a web of chains
• Spectral dimension on spatial hypersurfaces in causal set quantum gravity
• A numerical study of the correspondence between paths in a causal set and geodesics in the continuum

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