692 research outputs found
Absolute spacetime: the twentieth century ether
All gauge theories need ``something fixed'' even as ``something changes.''
Underlying the implementation of these ideas all major physical theories make
indispensable use of an elaborately designed spacetime model as the ``something
fixed,'' i.e., absolute. This model must provide at least the following
sequence of structures: point set, topological space, smooth manifold,
geometric manifold, base for various bundles. The ``fine structure'' of
spacetime inherent in this sequence is of course empirically unobservable
directly, certainly when quantum mechanics is taken into account. This issue is
at the basis of the difficulties in quantizing general relativity and has been
approached in many different ways. Here we review an approach taking into
account the non-Boolean properties of quantum logic when forming a spacetime
model. Finally, we recall how the fundamental gauge of diffeomorphisms (the
issue of general covariance vs coordinate conditions) raised deep conceptual
problems for Einstein in his early development of general relativity. This is
clearly illustrated in the notorious ``hole'' argument. This scenario, which
does not seem to be widely known to practicing relativists, is nevertheless
still interesting in terms of its impact for fundamental gauge issues.Comment: Contribution to Proceedings of Mexico Meeting on Gauge Theories of
Gravity in honor of Friedrich Heh
Is Quantum Mechanics Compatible with a Deterministic Universe? Two Interpretations of Quantum Probabilities
Two problems will be considered: the question of hidden parameters and the
problem of Kolmogorovity of quantum probabilities. Both of them will be
analyzed from the point of view of two distinct understandings of quantum
mechanical probabilities. Our analysis will be focused, as a particular
example, on the Aspect-type EPR experiment. It will be shown that the quantum
mechanical probabilities appearing in this experiment can be consistently
understood as conditional probabilities without any paradoxical consequences.
Therefore, nothing implies in the Aspect experiment that quantum theory is
incompatible with a deterministic universe.Comment: REVISED VERSION! ONLY SMALL CHANGES IN THE TEXT! compressed and
uuencoded postscript, a uuencoded version of a demo program file (epr.exe for
DOS) is attached as a "Figure
The regular cosmic string in Born-Infeld gravity
It is shown that Born-Infeld gravity --a high energy deformation of Einstein
gravity-- removes the singularities of a cosmic string. The respective vacuum
solution results to be free of conical singularity and closed timelike curves.
The space ends at a minimal circle where the curvature invariants vanish; but
this circle cannot be reached in a finite proper time.Comment: 4 pages, submitted to Proceedings of Spanish Relativity Meeting 2010
(ERE2010, Granada, Spain
The Origin of Structures in Generalized Gravity
In a class of generalized gravity theories with general couplings between the
scalar field and the scalar curvature in the Lagrangian, we can describe the
quantum generation and the classical evolution of both the scalar and tensor
structures in a simple and unified manner. An accelerated expansion phase based
on the generalized gravity in the early universe drives microscopic quantum
fluctuations inside a causal domain to expand into macroscopic ripples in the
spacetime metric on scales larger than the local horizon. Following their
generation from quantum fluctuations, the ripples in the metric spend a long
period outside the causal domain. During this phase their evolution is
characterized by their conserved amplitudes. The evolution of these
fluctuations may lead to the observed large scale structures of the universe
and anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background radiation.Comment: 5 pages, latex, no figur
Stationary Points of Scalar Fields Coupled to Gravity
We investigate the dynamics of gravity coupled to a scalar field using a
non-canonical form of the kinetic term. It is shown that its singular point
represents an attractor for classical solutions and the stationary value of the
field may occur distant from the minimum of the potential. In this paper
properties of universes with such stationary states are considered. We reveal
that such state can be responsible for modern dark energy density.Comment: H. Kroger, invited talk, FFP6, Udine (2004), revised version with
corrected author lis
Intrinsic Geometry of a Null Hypersurface
We apply Cartan's method of equivalence to construct invariants of a given
null hypersurface in a Lorentzian space-time. This enables us to fully classify
the internal geometry of such surfaces and hence solve the local equivalence
problem for null hypersurface structures in 4-dimensional Lorentzian
space-times
Localized Exotic Smoothness
Gompf's end-sum techniques are used to establish the existence of an infinity
of non-diffeomorphic manifolds, all having the same trivial
topology, but for which the exotic differentiable structure is confined to a
region which is spatially limited. Thus, the smoothness is standard outside of
a region which is topologically (but not smoothly) ,
where is the compact three ball. The exterior of this region is
diffeomorphic to standard . In a
space-time diagram, the confined exoticness sweeps out a world tube which, it
is conjectured, might act as a source for certain non-standard solutions to the
Einstein equations. It is shown that smooth Lorentz signature metrics can be
globally continued from ones given on appropriately defined regions, including
the exterior (standard) region. Similar constructs are provided for the
topology, of the Kruskal form of the Schwarzschild
solution. This leads to conjectures on the existence of Einstein metrics which
are externally identical to standard black hole ones, but none of which can be
globally diffeomorphic to such standard objects. Certain aspects of the Cauchy
problem are also discussed in terms of \models which are
``half-standard'', say for all but for which cannot be globally
smooth.Comment: 8 pages plus 6 figures, available on request, IASSNS-HEP-94/2
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