Thermal properties of spacetime foam

Spacetime foam can be modeled in terms of nonlocal effective interactions in a classical nonfluctuating background. Then, the density matrix for the low-energy fields evolves, in the weak-coupling approximation, according to a master equation that contains a diffusion term. Furthermore, it is argued...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Garay, Luis Javier
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:1998
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/100756
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/100756
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:[PACS] Foundations, theory of measurement, miscellaneous theories
[PACS] Spacetime topology, causal structure, spinor structure
[PACS] Quantum aspects of black holes, evaporation, thermodynamics
[PACS] Quantum gravity
Descripción
Sumario:Spacetime foam can be modeled in terms of nonlocal effective interactions in a classical nonfluctuating background. Then, the density matrix for the low-energy fields evolves, in the weak-coupling approximation, according to a master equation that contains a diffusion term. Furthermore, it is argued that spacetime foam behaves as a quantum thermal field that, apart from inducing loss of coherence, gives rise to effects such as gravitational Lamb and Stark shifts as well as quantum damping in the evolution of the low-energy observables. These effects can be, at least in principle, experimentally tested. ©1998 The American Physical Society