Spacetime as a quantum many-body system

Quantum gravity has become a fertile interface between gravitational physics and quantum many-body physics, with its double goal of identifying the microscopic constituents of the universe and their fundamental dynamics, and of understanding their collective properties and how spacetime and geometry themselves emerge from them at macroscopic scales. In this brief contribution, we outline the problem of quantum gravity from this emergent spacetime perspective, and discuss some examples in which ideas and methods from quantum many-body systems have found a central role in quantum gravity research.Comment: 15 pages; invited contribution to "Many-body approaches at different scales: A tribute to Norman H. March on the occasion of his 90th birthday", edited by G. G. N. Angilella and C. Amovilli (New York, Springer, 2017 - to appear

Spacetime-Free Approach to Quantum Theory and Effective Spacetime Structure

Motivated by hints of the effective emergent nature of spacetime structure, we formulate a spacetime-free algebraic framework for quantum theory, in which no a priori background geometric structure is required. Such a framework is necessary in order to study the emergence of effective spacetime structure in a consistent manner, without assuming a background geometry from the outset. Instead, the background geometry is conjectured to arise as an effective structure of the algebraic and dynamical relations between observables that are imposed by the background statistics of the system. Namely, we suggest that quantum reference states on an extended observable algebra, the free algebra generated by the observables, may give rise to effective spacetime structures. Accordingly, perturbations of the reference state lead to perturbations of the induced effective spacetime geometry. We initiate the study of these perturbations, and their relation to gravitational phenomena

Decay of Spatial Correlations in Thermal States

We study the cluster properties of thermal equilibrium states in theories with a maximal propagation velocity (such as relativistic QFT). Our analysis, carried out in the setting of algebraic quantum field theory, shows that there is a tight relation between spectral properties of the generator of time translations and the decay of spatial correlations in thermal equilibrium states, in complete analogy to the well understood case of the vacuum state.Comment: plain tex, 13 pages. To appear in Ann. Inst. H. Poinc. (Phys. Theor.

Statistical equilibrium of tetrahedra from maximum entropy principle

Discrete formulations of (quantum) gravity in four spacetime dimensions build space out of tetrahedra. We investigate a statistical mechanical system of tetrahedra from a many-body point of view based on non-local, combinatorial gluing constraints that are modelled as multi-particle interactions. We focus on Gibbs equilibrium states, constructed using Jaynes' principle of constrained maximisation of entropy, which has been shown recently to play an important role in characterising equilibrium in background independent systems. We apply this principle first to classical systems of many tetrahedra using different examples of geometrically motivated constraints. Then for a system of quantum tetrahedra, we show that the quantum statistical partition function of a Gibbs state with respect to some constraint operator can be reinterpreted as a partition function for a quantum field theory of tetrahedra, taking the form of a group field theory.Comment: v3 published version; v2 18 pages, 4 figures, improved text in sections IIIC & IVB, minor changes elsewher