Abstract
We consider a hypothesis in which classical space-time emerges from information exchange (interactions) between quantum fluctuations in the gravity theory. In this picture, a line element would arise as a statistical average of how frequently particles interact, through an individual rate dt ∼ 1/ft and spatially interconnecting rates dl ∼ c/f . The question is if space-time can be modelled consistently in this way. The ansatz would be opposite to the standard treatment of space-time as insensitive to altered physics at event horizons (disrupted propagation of information) but by extension relate to the connection of space-time to entanglement (interactions) through the gauge/gravity duality. We make a first, rough analysis of the implications this type of quantization would have on the classical structure of flat space-time, and of what would be required of the interactions. Seeing no obvious reason for why the origin would be unrealistic, we comment on expected effects in the presence of curvature.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
S.W. Hawking, Breakdown of predictability in gravitational collapse, Phys. Rev.D 14 (1976) 2460.
L. Susskind, L. Thorlacius and J. Uglum, The stretched horizon and black hole complementarity, Phys. Rev.D 48 (1993) 3743 [hep-th/9306069] [INSPIRE].
C.R. Stephens, G. ’t Hooft and B.F. Whiting, Black hole evaporation without information loss, Class. Quant. Grav.11 (1994) 621 [gr-qc/9310006] [INSPIRE].
A. Almheiri, D. Marolf, J. Polchinski and J. Sully, Black holes: complementarity or firewalls?, JHEP02 (2013) 062 [arXiv:1207.3123] [INSPIRE].
S.D. Mathur, The fuzzball proposal for black holes: an elementary review, Fortsch. Phys.53 (2005) 793 [hep-th/0502050] [INSPIRE].
G. Chapline, E. Hohlfeld, R.B. Laughlin and D.I. Santiago, Quantum phase transitions and the breakdown of classical general relativity, Int. J. Mod. Phys.A 18 (2003) 3587 [gr-qc/0012094] [INSPIRE].
A. Karlsson, Space-time emergence from individual interactions, arXiv:1806.05710 [INSPIRE].
M. Van Raamsdonk, Building up spacetime with quantum entanglement, Gen. Rel. Grav.42 (2010) 2323 [arXiv:1005.3035] [INSPIRE].
J.M. Maldacena, The large N limit of superconformal field theories and supergravity, Int. J. Theor. Phys.38 (1999) 1113 [hep-th/9711200] [INSPIRE].
T. Jacobson, Thermodynamics of space-time: the Einstein equation of state, Phys. Rev. Lett.75 (1995) 1260 [gr-qc/9504004] [INSPIRE].
B. Swingle, Entanglement renormalization and holography, Phys. Rev.D 86 (2012) 065007 [arXiv:0905.1317] [INSPIRE].
B. Swingle, Constructing holographic spacetimes using entanglement renormalization, arXiv:1209.3304 [INSPIRE].
L. Bombelli, J. Lee, D. Meyer and R. Sorkin, Space-time as a causal set, Phys. Rev. Lett.59 (1987) 521.
J. Ambjørn, J. Jurkiewicz and R. Loll, Emergence of a 4D world from causal quantum gravity, Phys. Rev. Lett.93 (2004) 131301 [hep-th/0404156] [INSPIRE].
L. Smolin, An invitation to loop quantum gravity, in the proceedings of the 3rdInternational Symposium on Quantum theory and symmetries (QTS3), September 10-14, Cincinnati, U.S.A. (2003), hep-th/0408048 [INSPIRE].
A. Ashtekar, Gravity and the quantum, New J. Phys.7 (2005) 198 [gr-qc/0410054] [INSPIRE].
C.A. Trugenberger, Combinatorial quantum gravity: geometry from random bits, JHEP09 (2017) 045 [arXiv:1610.05934] [INSPIRE].
C. Kelly, C.A. Trugenberger and F. Biancalana, Self-assembly of geometric space from random graphs, Class. Quant. Grav.36 (2019) 125012 [arXiv:1901.09870] [INSPIRE].
Open Access
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
ArXiv ePrint: 1903.02104
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Karlsson, A. Building flat space-time from information exchange between quantum fluctuations. J. High Energ. Phys. 2019, 140 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP07(2019)140
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP07(2019)140