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Quantum Gravity: The View From Particle Physics

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General Relativity, Cosmology and Astrophysics

Part of the book series: Fundamental Theories of Physics ((FTPH,volume 177))

Abstract

This lecture reviews aspects of and prospects for progress towards a theory of quantum gravity from a particle physics perspective, also paying attention to recent findings of the LHC experiments at CERN.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    With the possible exception of the Asymptotic Safety program [1].

  2. 2.

    As there is a vast literature on this subject, I here take the liberty of citing only a few representative introductory texts, where more references can be found.

  3. 3.

    There is no need here to distinguish between the Riemann tensor and the Weyl tensor, as all terms containing the Ricci scalar or the Ricci tensor can be absorbed into (possibly divergent) redefinitions of the metric.

  4. 4.

    The non-separability of the kinematical Hilbert space is also a crucial ingredient in proposals to resolve space-time singularities in loop quantum cosmology [13].

  5. 5.

    Of course, the biggest and most puzzling hierarchy problem concerns the smallness of the observed cosmological constant.

  6. 6.

    This option is not very popular with aficionados of the multiverse or the anthropic principle but, interestingly, the hope for a unique path from quantum gravity to the SM is also prominently visible in the very first papers on the heterotic superstring [17, 18].

  7. 7.

    Only partly, as for instance the larger part of the proton mass is due to non-perturbative QCD effects!

  8. 8.

    The two plots shown below have been downloaded from the CERN website [22] where also a summary of many further results can be found.

  9. 9.

    On this point, see also [28].

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Jianwei Mei for his help in turning my talk into a (hopefully) readable text and Krzysztof Meissner for many enjoyable and illuminating discussions on the state of the art.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute), Am Mühlenberg 1, 14476, Golm, Germany

    Hermann Nicolai

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  1. Hermann Nicolai
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Correspondence to Hermann Nicolai .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Praha 8, Czech Republic

    Jiří Bičák

  2. Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Praha 8, Czech Republic

    Tomáš Ledvinka

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Nicolai, H. (2014). Quantum Gravity: The View From Particle Physics. In: Bičák, J., Ledvinka, T. (eds) General Relativity, Cosmology and Astrophysics. Fundamental Theories of Physics, vol 177. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06349-2_18

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