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Results for “Models of Quantum Gravity”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

GQuEST Control System Resolution

GQuEST (Gravity from Quantum Entanglement of Space-Time), is a collaboration verifying a quantum gravity model by measuring holographic effects on a microscopic scale. Its interferometer apparatus filters excessive optical noise and requires a control system that can adjust the filtration to accommodate for frequency changes in the output light. We stress-test this control system by simulating filter behaviors with parameters in their outermost regimes, and we have determined a threshold that maintains precision while minimizing resource usage. These results are important for the successful operation of GQuEST's interferometer, enabling more accurate tests of quantum gravity models and thereby advancing our understanding of gravity at the quantum mechanical level.

Nguyen, David↗
DOE OSTI2025

Photon-Counting Interferometry to Detect Geontropic Space-Time Fluctuations with GQuEST

The gravity from the quantum entanglement of space-time (GQuEST) experiment uses tabletop-scale Michelson laser interferometers to probe for fluctuations in space-time. We present a practicable interferometer design featuring a novel photon-counting readout method that provides unprecedented sensitivity, as it is not subject to the interferometric standard quantum limit. We evaluate the potential of this design to measure space-time fluctuations motivated by recent “geontropic” quantum gravity models. The accelerated accrual of Fisher information offered by the photon-counting readout enables GQuEST to detect the predicted quantum gravity phenomena within measurement times at least 100 times shorter than equivalent conventional interferometers. The GQuEST design, thus, enables a fast and sensitive search for signatures of quantum gravity in a laboratory-scale experiment.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2024

Generalized entanglement capacity of de Sitter space

Near horizons, quantum fields of low spin exhibit densities of states that behave asymptotically like 1 + 1 dimensional conformal field theories. In effective field theory, imposing some short-distance cutoff, one can compute thermodynamic quantities associated with the horizon, and the leading cutoff sensitivity of the heat capacity is found to equal to the leading cutoff sensitivity of the entropy. One can also compute contributions to the thermodynamic quantities from the gravitational path integral. For the cosmological horizon of the static patch of de Sitter space, a natural conjecture for the relevant heat capacity is shown to equal the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. These observations allow us to extend the well-known notion of the generalized entropy to a generalized heat capacity for the static patch of de Sitter (dS). The finiteness of the entropy and the nonvanishing of the generalized heat capacity suggest it is useful to think about dS as a state in a finite dimensional quantum gravity model that is not maximally uncertain. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗
DOE OSTI2025

Holography: Quantum Mechanical Aspects of Black Holes (Final Report)

Current theories of fundamental physics are based on quantum field theory, unifying quantum mechanics and special relativity. A similar unification of quantum field theory with gravity has been elusive. String theory is a consistent model of quantum gravity and it is important to identify general lessons that can be applied to the real world. The main technique that emerged from such studies has been the gravitational path integral. During the period of this grant, the PI has explored the implication of the gravitational path integral in novel setups to uncover new features of rotating black holes in four dimensions, as well as increasing our understanding of some specific black holes in string theory.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Open-closed 3d gravity as a random ensemble

We investigate an ensemble of boundary CFTs within the framework of a tensor model recently constructed to model 3d quantum gravity. The incorporation of CFT borders introduces new elements to the gravity theory. In particular, it leads to an open-closed extension of Virasoro TQFT, which in the classical limit gives rise to 3d gravity with tensionful end-of-the-world branes. It also provides predictions for off-shell manifolds with bordered asymptotic boundaries, such as the annulus wormhole. As an application, we construct a purely open variant of the tensor model to study a purely open bootstrap problem in the context of CFT triangulation. We also briefly discuss the extension to non-orientable CFTs.

AdS-CFT correspondence↗
DOE OSTI2026

Response of interferometers to the vacuum of quantum gravity

It has recently been suggested that exotic quantum gravity effects could lead to large vacuum fluctuations, potentially observable with realistic detectors. Experiments are currently being built to search for these signals. Here we analyze the minimal model of quantum gravity at low energies—the usual effective quantum field theory of gravitons—and show that it unambiguously predicts an unobservably small variation in the measured interferometer length Δ⁢𝐿 ∼ ℓ pl ∼ 10 −35 m. In particular, there are no divergences signaling a breakdown of this calculation in the low energy regime. Thus, detection of a large, gravitationally induced length variation would signal a severe breakdown of effective quantum field theory in low energy quantum gravity.

Carney, Daniel [Lawrence Berkeley National Laborat↗
DOE OSTI2025

Dark dimension and the grand unification of forces

The dark dimension scenario, predicting one extra mesoscopic dimension in the micron range, has emerged by applying various swampland principles to the dark energy. In this note we find that realizing the grand unification of gauge forces is highly constraining in this context. Without actually constructing any grand unified theory (GUT) models, we argue that the mere assumption of grand unification of forces in this scenario, together with the experimental bounds on massive replicas of the Standard Model gauge bosons, predicts an upper bound for the GUT scale, 𝑀 GUT ≲ 10 16 GeV. Combined with the experimental bound on the proton lifetime, this predicts that the 𝑋 gauge boson mediating proton decay is a 5D solitonic string of Planckian tension stretched across a length scale 𝐿 ∼ (1–10 TeV) −1 ending on gauge branes of the same diameter ∼𝐿. This leads to a mass of 𝑀 𝑋 ∼ 10 15 –10 16 GeV. In particular assuming grand unification in the dark dimension scenario results in a tower of Kaluza-Klein excitations of Standard Model gauge bosons on the gauge branes in the 1–10 TeV range. This suggests that the diameter/separation 𝐿 of the gauge branes correlates with both the weak scale ∼1/𝐿 near a TeV and the GUT scale ∼𝑀$^2_5$⁢𝐿 at 10 16 GeV.

branes↗
DOE OSTI2024

Approximate Quantum Codes From Long Wormholes

We discuss families of approximate quantum error correcting codes which arise as the nearly-degenerate ground states of certain quantum many-body Hamiltonians composed of non-commuting terms. For exact codes, the conditions for error correction can be formulated in terms of the vanishing of a two-sided mutual information in a low-temperature thermofield double state. We consider a notion of distance for approximate codes obtained by demanding that this mutual information instead be small, and we evaluate this mutual information for the SYK model and for a family of low-rank SYK models. After an extrapolation to nearly zero temperature, we find that both kinds of models produce fermionic codes with constant rate as the number, N , of fermions goes to infinity. For SYK, the distance scales as N 1 / 2 , and for low-rank SYK, the distance can be arbitrarily close to linear scaling, e.g. N .99 , while maintaining a constant rate. We also consider an analog of the no low-energy trivial states property which we dub the no low-energy adiabatically accessible states property and show that these models do have low-energy states that can be prepared adiabatically in a time that does not scale with system size N . We discuss a holographic model of these codes in which the large code distance is a consequence of the emergence of a long wormhole geometry in a simple model of quantum gravity.

Physics↗
DOE OSTI2024

A convergent genus expansion for the plateau

We conjecture a formula for the spectral form factor of a double-scaled matrix integral in the limit of large time, large density of states, and fixed temperature. The formula has a genus expansion with a nonzero radius of convergence. To understand the origin of this series, we compare to the semiclassical theory of “encounters” in periodic orbits. In Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) gravity, encounters correspond to portions of the moduli space integral that mutually cancel (in the orientable case) but individually grow at low energies. At genus one we show how the full moduli space integral resolves the low energy region and gives a finite nonzero answer.

2D Gravity↗
DOE OSTI2025

On the Quantum Mechanics of Entropic Forces

It was conjectured 30 years ago that gravity could arise from the entropic rearrangement of information. We offer a set of microscopic quantum models which realize this idea in detail. In particular, we suggest a simple mechanism by which Newton’s law of gravity arises from extremization of the free energy of a collection of qubits or oscillators, rather than from the exchange of virtual quanta of a fundamental field. We give both a local and a nonlocal version of the construction and show how to distinguish a range of these entropic models from ordinary perturbative quantum gravity using existing observations and near-term experiments.

quantum fluctuations↗
DOE OSTI2025

Wormholes, branes and finite matrices in sine dilaton gravity

We compute the double trumpet in sine dilaton gravity via WdW quantization. The wormhole size is discretized. The wormhole amplitude matches the spectral correlation of a finite-cut matrix integral, where matrices have large but finite dimensions. This strongly suggests an identification of the sine dilaton gravity theory with the q-deformed JT gravity matrix integral. At the very least, it captures all universal content of that matrix model. The disk decomposes into the physical (gauge invariant) solutions of the WdW equation, which are trumpets with discrete sizes. This decomposition modifies the usual no-boundary wavefunction to a normalizable one in sine dilaton gravity.

2D Gravity↗
DOE OSTI2025

Non-isometry, state dependence and holography

We establish an equivalence between non-isometry of quantum codes and state dependence of operator reconstruction, and discuss implications of this equivalence for holographic duality. Specifically, we define quantitative measures of non-isometry and state dependence and describe bounds relating these quantities. In the context of holography we show that, assuming known gravitational path integral results for overlaps between semiclassical states, non-isometric bulk-to-boundary maps with a trivial kernel are approximately isometric and bulk reconstruction approximately state-independent. In contrast, non-isometric maps with a non-empty kernel always lead to state-dependent reconstruction. We also show that if a global bulk-to-boundary map is non-isometric, then there exists a region in the bulk which is causally disconnected from the boundary. Finally, we conjecture that, under certain physical assumptions for the definition of the Hilbert space of effective field theory in AdS space, the presence of a global horizon implies a non-isometric global bulk-to-boundary map.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Hollow-grams: generalized entanglement wedges from the gravitational path integral

Recently, Bousso and Penington (BP) made a proposal for the entanglement wedge associated to a gravitating bulk region. In this paper, we derive this proposal in time-reflection symmetric settings using the gravitational path integral. To do this, we exploit the connection between random tensor networks (RTNs) and fixed-geometry states in gravity. We define the entropy of a bulk region in an RTN by removing tensors in that region and computing the entropy of the open legs thus generated in the “hollowed” RTN. We thus derive the BP proposal for RTNs and hence, also for fixed-geometry states in gravity. By then expressing a general holographic state as a superposition over fixed-geometry states and using a diagonal approximation, we provide a general gravitational path integral derivation of the BP proposal. We demonstrate that the saddles computing the Rényi entropy Sn depend on how the bulk region is gauge-invariantly specified. Nevertheless, we show that the BP proposal is universally reproduced in the n → 1 limit.

2D Gravity↗
DOE OSTI2024

Quantum extremal modular curvature: modular transport with islands

Modular Berry transport is a useful way to understand how geometric bulk information is encoded in the boundary CFT: the modular curvature is directly related to the bulk Riemann curvature. We extend this approach by studying modular transport in the presence of a non-trivial quantum extremal surface. Focusing on JT gravity on an AdS background coupled to a non-gravitating bath, we compute the modular curvature of an interval in the bath in the presence of an island: the Quantum Extremal Modular Curvature (QEMC). We highlight some important properties of the QEMC, most importantly that it is non-local in general. In an OPE limit, the QEMC becomes local and probes the bulk Riemann curvature in regions with an island. Our work gives a new approach to probe physics behind horizons.

2D Gravity↗
DOE OSTI2024

Random matrix model of the Virasoro minimal string

The model of two dimensional quantum gravity defining the Virasoro minimal string, presented recently by Collier, Eberhardt, Mühlmann, and Rodriguez, was also shown to be perturbatively (in topology) equivalent to a random matrix model. An alternative definition is presented here, in terms of double-scaled orthogonal polynomials, thereby allowing direct access to nonperturbative physics. Already at leading order, the defining string equation’s properties yield valuable information about the nonperturbative fate of the model, confirming that the case ( c = 25 , c ^ = 1 ) (central charges of spacelike and timelike Liouville sectors) is special, by virtue of sharing certain key features of the N = 1 supersymmetric JT gravity string equation. Solutions of the full string equation are constructed using a special limit, and the (Cardy) spectral density is completed to all genus and beyond. The distributions of the underlying discrete spectra are readily accessible too, as is the spectral form factor. Some examples of these are exhibited. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗
DOE OSTI2024

Mixed gauge-global symmetries, elliptic modes, and black hole thermodynamics in Hořava-Lifshitz gravity

In Hořava-Lifshitz gravity, a putative consistent theory of quantum gravity for which there is evidence for both black hole thermodynamics and a holographic construction, spacetime is endowed with a preferred dynamical spacelike foliation. The theory has a leaf reparameterization symmetry that is neither global nor local gauge, hyperbolic and elliptic equations of motion, a lack of splittability, and universal horizon black hole solutions. The reparameterization symmetry is “mixed”: it is a local symmetry in one coordinate yet global on each leaf. More broadly it is an example of both unfree and projectable gauge symmetries. The mixed symmetry and associated charge has not yet been accounted for in calculations of universal horizon thermodynamics in Hořava-Lifshitz gravity. This has led to problems, in particular the failure of the first law in a class of asymptotically AdS solutions where the normal to the leaves of the foliation is not aligned with the time translation Killing vector at infinity. We show how the dynamics of the charge corresponding to this symmetry coupled with the other features above resolves this issue. We then briefly comment how this mixed symmetry, the corresponding charge, and the elliptic equations of motion also conspire to evade recent holographic arguments for only local gauge fields in consistent theories of quantum gravity due to the lack of splittability of the elliptic equation and associated mode.

Global Symmetries↗
DOE OSTI2026

Quantum mechanics and observers for gravity in a closed universe

Recent arguments based on the quantum extremal surface formula or the gravitational path integral have given fairly compelling evidence that the Hilbert space of quantum gravity in a closed universe is one-dimensional and real. How can this be consistent with the complexity of our own experiences? In this paper we propose that the experiences of any observer Ob in a closed universe can be approximately described by a quantum mechanical theory with a Hilbert space whose dimension is roughly e S Ob , where S Ob is the number of degrees of freedom of Ob. Moreover we argue that the errors in this description are exponentially small in S Ob . We give evidence for this proposal by incorporating it into the gravitational path integral and the coding interpretation of holography in simple models and seeing that it works, and we explain how similar effects arise in black hole physics in appropriate circumstances.

AdS-CFT Correspondence↗
DOE OSTI2025

Dissipation in open holography

We exploit the holographic realization of a conformal theory coupled to an external bath realized via a double trace deformation and its gravity dual in terms of transparent boundary conditions in order to map out some basic dissipative properties of this simple open holographic system. In particular, we determine the energy transmission coefficient across the boundary, discover a novel duality relating weak and strong coupling to the external bath, and quantify the dissipation in the system by working out the quasi normal modes.

AdS-CFT correspondence↗