International Journal of Modern Physics D

In the present work we study the process of particle creation for mass dimension one fermionic fields (sometimes named Elko) as a consequence of expansion of the universe. We study the effect driven by an expanding background that is asymptotically Minkowski in the past and future. The differential equation that governs the time mode function is obtained for the conformal coupling case and, although its solution is nonanalytic, within an approximation that preserves the characteristics of the terms that break analyticity, analytic solutions are obtained. Thus, by means of Bogolyubov transformations technique, the number density of particles created is obtained, which can be compared to exact solutions already present in literature for scalar and Dirac particles. The spectrum of the created particles was obtained and it was found that it is a generalization of the scalar field case, which converges to the scalar field one when the specific terms concerning the Elko field are dropped out. We also found that lighter Elko particles are created in larger quantities than the Dirac fermionic particles. By considering the Elko particles as candidate to the dark matter in the universe, such result shows that there are more light dark matter (Elko) particles created by the gravitational effects in the universe than baryonic (fermionic) matter, in agreement to the standard model.

Vacuum fluctuations of quantum fields are altered in the presence of a strong gravitational background, with important physical consequences. We argue that a nontrivial spacetime geometry can act as an optically active medium for quantum electromagnetic radiation, in such a way that the state of polarization of radiation changes in time, even in the absence of electromagnetic sources. This is a quantum effect, and is a consequence of an anomaly related to the classical invariance under electric-magnetic duality rotations in Maxwell theory.

Suppose we assume that (a) information about a black hole is encoded in its Hawking radiation and (b) causality is not violated to leading order in gently curved spacetime. Then, we argue that spacetime cannot just be described as a manifold with a shape; it must be given an additional attribute which we call “thickness.” This thickness characterizes the spread of the quantum gravity wave functional in superspace — the space of all three-geometries. Low energy particles travel on spacetime without noticing the thickness parameter, so they just see an effective manifold. Objects with energy large enough to create a horizon do note the finite thickness; this modifies the semiclassical evolution in such a way that we avoid horizon formation and the consequent violation of causality.

We define a natural counting function for BPS black holes in $K3\times T^2$ compactification of type II string theory, and observe that it is given by a weight 3/2 mock modular form discovered by Zagier. This hints at tantalizing relations connecting black holes, string theory, and number theory.

The weak gravity conjecture suggests that, in a self-consistent theory of quantum gravity, the strength of gravity is bounded from above by the strengths of the various gauge forces in the theory. In particular, this intriguing conjecture asserts that in a theory describing a $U(1)$ gauge field coupled consistently to gravity, there must exist a particle whose proper mass is bounded (in Planck units) by its charge: $m/m_{\text{P}}<q$. This beautiful and remarkably compact conjecture has attracted the attention of physicists and mathematicians over the last decade. It should be emphasized, however, that despite the fact that there are numerous examples from field theory and string theory that support the conjecture, we still lack a general proof of its validity. In the present paper, we prove that the weak gravity conjecture (and, in particular, the mass–charge upper bound $m/m_{\text{P}}<q$) can be inferred directly from Bekenstein’s generalized second law of thermodynamics, a law which is widely believed to reflect a fundamental aspect of the elusive theory of quantum gravity.

The dynamics of a gravitational wave propagating through a cosmic gauge field are dramatically different than in vacuum. We show that a gravitational wave acquires an effective mass, is birefringent, and its normal modes are a linear combination of gravitational waves and gauge field excitations, leading to the phenomenon of gravitational wave–gauge field oscillations. These surprising results provide an insight into gravitational phenomena and may suggest new approaches to a theory of quantum gravity.

A broad brush impressionistic view of physics from the vantage point of someone living on a nearby dark-planet Zimpok is presented so as to argue that the observed and the observer are reflected in quantum gravity through a universal mass shared by neurones and a unification scale of the high energy physics.

Gravity controls the amount of information that is accessible to any specific observer. We quantify the notion of cosmic information (‘CosmIn’) for the case of an eternal observer in the universe. Demanding the finiteness of CosmIn requires the universe to have a late-time accelerated expansion phase. Combined with some generic features of the quantum structure of spacetime, this leads to the determination of (i) the numerical value of the cosmological constant, as well as (ii) the amplitude of the primordial, scale invariant perturbation spectrum in terms of a single free parameter, which specifies the energy scale at which the universe makes a transition from a pre-geometric phase to the classical phase. This formalism also shows that the quantum gravitational information content of spacetime can be tested by using precision cosmology.

The search for a theory of quantum gravity is the most fundamental problem in all of theoretical physics, but there are as yet no experimental results at all to guide this endeavor. What seems to be needed is a pragmatic way to test if gravitation really occurs between quantum objects or not. In this paper, we suggest such a potential way out of this deadlock, utilizing macroscopic quantum systems; superfluid helium, gaseous Bose–Einstein condensates and “macroscopic” molecules. It turns out that true quantum gravity effects — here defined as observable gravitational interactions between truly quantum objects — could and should be seen (if they occur in nature) using existing technology. A falsification of the low-energy limit in the accessible weak-field regime would also falsify the full theory of quantum gravity, making it enter the realm of testable, potentially falsifiable theories, i.e. becoming real physics after almost a century of pure theorizing. If weak-field gravity between quantum objects is shown to be absent (in the regime where the approximation should apply), we know that gravity then is a strictly classical phenomenon absent at the quantum level.

Pulsars (PSRs) are some of the most accurate clocks found in nature, while black holes (BHs) offer a unique arena for the study of quantum gravity. As such, PSR–BH binaries provide ideal astrophysical systems for detecting effects of quantum gravity. With the success of aLIGO and the advent of instruments like the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) and Evolved Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (eLISA), the prospects for discovery of such PSR–BH binaries are very promising. We argue that PSR–BH binaries can serve as ready-made testing grounds for proposed resolutions to the BH information paradox. We propose using timing signals from a PSR beam passing through the region near a BH event horizon as a probe of quantum gravitational effects. In particular, we demonstrate that fluctuations of the geometry outside a BH lead to an increase in the measured root-mean-square deviation of arrival times of PSR pulsar traveling near the horizon.

We argue that the gravitational wave signal recently observed by the LIGO detectors provides a powerful tool to probe the fundamental structure of space and time. In particular, we properly model the inspiral phase of two merging black holes in a noncommutative spacetime and extract an upper bound on the scale of such quantum fuzziness at the order of the Planck scale. This improves previous constraints by $\sim 15$ orders of magnitude.

We argue that preferred classical variables emerge from the entanglement structure of a pure quantum state in the form of redundant records: information shared between many subsystems. Focusing on the early universe, we ask how classical metric perturbations emerge from vacuum fluctuations in an inflationary background. We show that the squeezing of the quantum state for super-horizon modes, along with minimal gravitational interactions, leads to decoherence and to an exponential number of records of metric fluctuations on very large scales, $\lambda /{\lambda }_{\mathrm{\text{Hubble}}}>{\mathrm{\Delta }}_{\zeta }^{-2/3}$, where ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{\zeta }\lesssim 10^{-5}$ is the amplitude of metric fluctuations. This determines a preferred decomposition of the inflationary wavefunction into orthogonal “branches” corresponding to classical metric perturbations, which defines an inflationary entropy production rate and accounts for the emergence of stochastic, inhomogeneous spacetime geometry.

In the presence of rotation, gravity induces, even at zero temperature, a chiral vortical current. This current is interpreted as emerging from the gravitational Chern–Simons current. We argue that this gravitational Chern–Simons chiral vortical current may provide a novel universal microscopic mechanism behind the generation of collimated jets from rotating astrophysical compact sources.

Event horizons are the defining feature of classical black holes. They are the key ingredient of the information loss paradox which, as paradoxes in quantum foundations, is built on a combination of predictions of quantum theory and counterfactual classical features: neither horizon formation nor its crossing by a test body can be detected by a distant observer. Furthermore, horizons are unnecessary for the production of Hawking-like radiation. We demonstrate that when this radiation is taken into account, it can prevent horizon crossing/formation in a large class of models. We conjecture that horizon avoidance is a general feature of collapse. The nonexistence of event horizons dispels the paradox, but opens up important questions about thermodynamic properties of the resulting objects and correlations between different degrees of freedom.

In applications of Einstein gravity, one replaces the quantum-mechanical energy–momentum tensor of sources such as the degenerate electrons in a white dwarf or the black-body photons in the microwave background by c-number matrix elements. And not only that, one ignores the zero-point fluctuations in these sources by only retaining the normal-ordered parts of those matrix elements. There is no apparent justification for this procedure, and we show that it is precisely this procedure that leads to the cosmological constant problem. We suggest that solving the problem requires that gravity be treated just as quantum-mechanically as the sources to which it couples, and show that one can then solve the cosmological constant problem if one replaces Einstein gravity by the fully quantum-mechanically consistent conformal gravity theory.

For Newtonian dynamics to hold over galactic scales, large amounts of dark matter (DM) are required which would dominate cosmic structures. Accounting for the strong observational evidence that the universe is accelerating requires the presence of an unknown dark energy (DE) component constituting about 70% of the matter. Several ingenious ongoing experiments to detect the DM particles have so far led to negative results. Moreover, the comparable proportions of the DM and DE at the present epoch appear unnatural and not predicted by any theory. For these reasons, alternative ideas like MOND and modification of gravity or general relativity over cosmic scales have been proposed. It is shown in this paper that these alternate ideas may not be easily distinguishable from the usual DM or DE hypotheses. Specific examples are given to illustrate this point that the modified theories are special cases of a generalized DM paradigm.

In the canonical approach to quantization of gravity, one often uses relational clock variables and an interpretation in terms of conditional probabilities to overcome the problem of time. In this essay, we show that these suffer from serious conceptual issues.

We study a universe filled with cold dark matter in the form of discrete inhomogeneities (e.g. galaxies) and dark energy in the form of a continuous perfect fluid. We develop a first-order scalar perturbation theory in the weak gravity limit around a spatially flat Friedmann universe. Our approach works at all cosmic scales and incorporates linear and nonlinear effects with respect to energy density fluctuations. The gravitational potential can be split into individual contributions from each matter source. Each potential is characterized by a Yukawa interaction with the same range, which is of the order of 3700 Mpc at the present time. The derived equations can form the theoretical basis for numerical simulations for a wide class of modern cosmological models.

We argue in a model-independent way that the Hilbert space of quantum gravity is locally finite-dimensional. In other words, the density operator describing the state corresponding to a small region of space, when such a notion makes sense, is defined on a finite-dimensional factor of a larger Hilbert space. Because quantum gravity potentially describes superpositions of different geometries, it is crucial that we associate Hilbert-space factors with spatial regions only on individual decohered branches of the universal wave function. We discuss some implications of this claim, including the fact that quantum-field theory cannot be a fundamental description of nature.

We model the standard $\mathrm{\Lambda }$CDM model of the universe by the spatially flat FLRW line element

We show why and how Compton wavelength and Schwarzschild radius should be combined into one single new length scale, which we call the Compton–Schwarzschild length. Doing so offers a resolution of the black hole information loss paradox, and suggests Planck mass remnant black holes as candidates for dark matter. It also compels us to introduce torsion, and identify the Dirac field with a complex torsion field. Dirac equation and Einstein equations, are shown to be mutually dual limiting cases of an underlying gravitation theory which involves the Compton–Schwarzschild length scale, and includes a complex torsion field.

What happens to the most general closed oscillating universes in general relativity? We sketch the development of interest in cyclic universes from the early work of Friedmann and Tolman to modern variations introduced by the presence of a cosmological constant. Then we show what happens in the cyclic evolution of the most general closed anisotropic universes provided by the Mixmaster universe. We show that in the presence of entropy increase its cycles grow in size and age, increasingly approaching flatness. But these cycles also grow increasingly anisotropic at their expansion maxima. If there is a positive cosmological constant, or dark energy, present then these oscillations always end and the last cycle evolves from an anisotropic inflexion point towards a de Sitter future of everlasting expansion.

Wave propagation of field disturbances is ubiquitous. The electromagnetic and gravitational are cousin theories in which the corresponding waves play a relevant role to understand several related physical aspects. It has been established that small electromagnetic waves can generate gravitational waves and vice versa when scattered by a charged black hole. In the realm of cylindrical spacetimes, we present here a simple nonlinear effect of the conversion of electromagnetic to gravitational waves reflected by the amount of mass extracted from them.

We evaluate the mass of the black holes of GW150914 at their event horizons via quasi-local energy approach and obtain the values of 71 and 57 solar masses, compared to their asymptotic values of 36 and 29 units, respectively, as reported by LIGO. A higher mass at the event horizon is compulsory in order to overcome the huge negative gravitational potential energy surrounding the black holes and allow for the emission of gravitational waves during merging. We estimate the initial mass of the stars which collapsed to form the black holes from the horizon mass and obtain the impressive values of 95 and 76 solar masses for these progenitor stars.

While the accumulation of long wavelength modes during inflation wreaks havoc on the large scale structure of spacetime, the question of even observability of their presence by any local observer has lead to considerable confusion. Though, it is commonly agreed that infrared effects are not visible to a single sub-horizon observer at late times, we argue that the question is less trivial for a patient observer who has lived long enough to have a record of the state before the soft mode was created. Though classically, there is no obstruction to measuring this effect locally, we give several indications that quantum mechanical uncertainties censor the effect, rendering the observation of long modes ultimately forbidden.

Quantum many-body problem with exponentially large degrees of freedom can be reduced to a tractable computational form by neural network method [G. Carleo and M. Troyer, Science 355 (2017) 602, arXiv:1606.02318.] The power of deep neural network (DNN) based on deep learning is clarified by mapping it to renormalization group (RG), which may shed lights on holographic principle by identifying a sequence of RG transformations to the AdS geometry. In this paper, we show that any network which reflects RG process has intrinsic hyperbolic geometry, and discuss the structure of entanglement encoded in the graph of DNN. We find the entanglement structure of DNN is of Ryu–Takayanagi form. Based on these facts, we argue that the emergence of holographic gravitational theory is related to deep learning process of the quantum-field theory.

Generalized models of unified dark matter (DM) and dark energy (DE) in the context of Two Measure Theories and of dynamical spacetime theories are obtained. In Two Measure Theories, one uses metric independent volume elements and this allows to construct unified DM and DE, where the cosmological constant appears as an integration constant associated to the equation of motion of the measure fields. The dynamical spacetime theories generalize the Two Measure Theories by introducing a vector field whose equation of motion guarantees the conservation of a certain energy–momentum tensor, which may be related, but in general is not the same as the gravitational energy–momentum tensor. By considering the dynamical space field appearing in another part of the action (apart from the coupling to the energy–momentum tensor), we can obtain noncovariant energy–momentum conservation. Then, the dynamical spacetime theory becomes a theory of diffusive unified DE and DM. The nonconserved energy–momentum tensors lead at the end to a formulation of interacting DE–DM models in the form of a diffusive type interacting unified DE and DM scenario. We solved analytically the theories for asymptotic solution, and we show that the $\mathrm{\Lambda }$CDM is a fixed point of these theories at large times.

Well known weakness of gravity in particle physics is an illusion caused by underestimation of the role of spin in gravity. Relativistic rotation is inseparable from spin, which for elementary particles is extremely high and exceeds mass on 20–22 orders (in units $c=G=m=\hslash =1$). Such a huge spin generates frame-dragging that distorts space much stronger than mass, and effective scale of gravitational interaction is shifted from Planck to Compton distances. We show that compatibility between gravity and quantum theory can be achieved without modifications of Einstein–Maxwell equations, by coupling to a supersymmetric Higgs model of symmetry breaking and forming a nonperturbative super-bag solution, which generates a gravity-free Compton zone necessary for consistent work of quantum theory. Super-bag is naturally upgraded to Wess–Zumino supersymmetric QED model, forming a bridge to perturbative formalism of conventional QED.

In this paper we investigate the observational signatures of Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC) in the CMB data. First, we concentrate on the dynamics of LQC and we provide the basic cosmological functions. We then obtain the power spectrum of scalar and tensor perturbations in order to study the performance of LQC against the latest CMB data. We find that LQC provides a robust prediction for the main slow-roll parameters, like the scalar spectral index and the tensor-to-scalar fluctuation ratio, which are in excellent agreement within $1\sigma$ with the values recently measured by the Planck collaboration. This result indicates that LQC can be seen as an alternative scenario with respect to that of standard inflation.

We argue that, when certain higher-curvature corrections are added to the four-dimensional Einstein–Hilbert action, black holes become stable below certain mass. We show this to be the case for an infinite family of ghost-free theories involving terms of arbitrarily high order in curvature. The thermodynamic behavior of the new black holes is universal for arbitrary values of the couplings, with the only exception of the Schwarzschild solution itself, which is recovered when all the couplings are set to zero. For this class of theories, the issue of non-unitary evolution is inexistent, as black holes never evaporate completely.

Inflation in the early universe is one of the most promising probes of gravity in the high-energy regime. However, observable scales give access to a limited window in the inflationary dynamics. In this paper, we argue that quantum corrections to the classical dynamics of cosmological fields allow us to probe much earlier epochs of the inflationary phase and extend this window by many orders of magnitude. We point out that both the statistics of cosmological fluctuations at observable scales, and the field displacements acquired by spectator fields that play an important role in many post-inflationary processes, are sensitive to a much longer phase of the inflationary epoch.

Stability analysis plays a major rule in our understanding of nature. For example it was shown that among empty flat spacetimes only those with a Lorentzian metric are stable [A. Yahalom, Found Phys. 38 (2008) 489–497; Int. J. Mod. Phys. D 18(4) (2009) 2155–2158]. However, the universe is not empty and the energy momentum tensor is metric dependent an thus effects stability. In this essay we concentrate on simple perturbations of the standard cosmological model with and without cosmological constant which is based on a uniform mass distribution. The results suggest that while Euclidean, open or closed section models are valid solutions, the choice of stable solutions is limited. In particular, the popular Lambda-CDM model is unstable.

Classical point particles in Newtonian gravity obey, as they do in general relativity, the universality of free fall. However, classical structured particles, (for instance with a mass quadrupole moment), need not obey the universality of free fall. Quantum mechanically, an elementary “point” particle (in the particle physics sense) can be described by a localized wave packet, for which we can define a probability quadrupole moment. This probability quadrupole can, under plausible hypotheses, affect the universality of free fall. (So point-like elementary particles, in the particle physics sense, can and indeed must nevertheless have structure in the general relativistic sense once wave packet effects are included.) This raises an important issue of principle, as possible quantum violations of the universality of free fall would fundamentally impact on our ideas of what “quantum gravity” might look like. I will present an estimate of the size of the effect, and discuss where if at all it might be measured.

In a full theory of quantum gravity, local physics is expected to be approximate rather than innate. It is therefore important to understand how approximate locality in our universe emerges in the semiclassical limit. Here, we show that any notion of locality emergent from a holographic theory of quantum gravity is “all or nothing”: local data is not obtained gradually from subregions of the boundary, but is rather obtained all at once when enough of the boundary is accessed. Our assumptions are mild and thus this feature is quite general; for concreteness, we show how this phenomenon manifests in the special case of AdS/CFT.

A major issue that has challenged physics is the goal of bringing gravity into a complete unification of the interactions and the quantization of gravity. We build upon the appreciation that electromagnetic waves are also gravitational waves because they transport local spacetime curvature. Logical steps lead us to appreciate the totality of the traditional quantized particles in nature as gravitational quanta. Thus, our present particle physics model is seen to be unified with the gravitational interaction. Whether there remains a scope for the existence of a spin-2 graviton in vacuum is brought into question by our invariant energy construct centered upon the Ricci tensor. We suggest that this construct holds the key to ultra-strong gravity’s essential role in quantization.

We argue that the requirement of a finite entanglement entropy of quantum degrees of freedom across a boundary surface is closely related to the phenomenon of running spectral dimension, universal in approaches to quantum gravity. If quantum geometry hinders diffusion, for instance, when its structure at some given scale is discrete or too rough, then the spectral dimension of spacetime vanishes at that scale and the entropy density blows up. A finite entanglement entropy is a key ingredient in deriving Einstein gravity in a semi-classical regime of a quantum-gravitational theory and, thus, our arguments strengthen the role of running dimensionality as an imprint of quantum geometry with potentially observable consequences.

The response of a superconductor to a gravitational wave is shown to obey a London-like constituent equation. The Cooper pairs are described by the Ginzburg–Landau free energy density embedded in curved spacetime. The lattice ions are modeled by quantum harmonic oscillators characterized by quasi-energy eigenvalues. This formulation is shown to predict a dynamical Casimir effect since the zero-point energy of the ionic lattice phonons is modulated by the gravitational wave. It is also shown that the response to a gravitational wave is far less for the Cooper pair density than for the ionic lattice. This predicts a “charge separation effect” which can be used to detect the passage of a gravitational wave.