1,895 research outputs found
Comment on "Quantum mechanics of smeared particles"
In a recent article, Sastry has proposed a quantum mechanics of smeared
particles. We show that the effects induced by the modification of the
Heisenberg algebra, proposed to take into account the delocalization of a
particle defined via its Compton wavelength, are important enough to be
excluded experimentally.Comment: 2 page
Perturbation spectrum in inflation with cutoff
It has been pointed out that the perturbation spectrum predicted by inflation
may be sensitive to a natural ultraviolet cutoff, thus potentially providing an
experimentally accessible window to aspects of Planck scale physics. A priori,
a natural ultraviolet cutoff could take any form, but a fairly general
classification of possible Planck scale cutoffs has been given. One of those
categorized cutoffs, also appearing in various studies of quantum gravity and
string theory, has recently been implemented into the standard inflationary
scenario. Here, we continue this approach by investigating its effects on the
predicted perturbation spectrum. We find that the size of the effect depends
sensitively on the scale separation between cutoff and horizon during
inflation.Comment: 6 pages; matches version accepted by PR
Minimal Length Uncertainty Relation and Hydrogen Atom
We propose a new approach to calculate perturbatively the effects of a
particular deformed Heisenberg algebra on energy spectrum. We use this method
to calculate the harmonic oscillator spectrum and find that corrections are in
agreement with a previous calculation. Then, we apply this approach to obtain
the hydrogen atom spectrum and we find that splittings of degenerate energy
levels appear. Comparison with experimental data yields an interesting upper
bound for the deformation parameter of the Heisenberg algebra.Comment: 7 pages, REVTe
Unsharp Degrees of Freedom and the Generating of Symmetries
In quantum theory, real degrees of freedom are usually described by operators
which are self-adjoint. There are, however, exceptions to the rule. This is
because, in infinite dimensional Hilbert spaces, an operator is not necessarily
self-adjoint even if its expectation values are real. Instead, the operator may
be merely symmetric. Such operators are not diagonalizable - and as a
consequence they describe real degrees of freedom which display a form of
"unsharpness" or "fuzzyness". For example, there are indications that this type
of operators could arise with the description of space-time at the string or at
the Planck scale, where some form of unsharpness or fuzzyness has long been
conjectured.
A priori, however, a potential problem with merely symmetric operators is the
fact that, unlike self-adjoint operators, they do not generate unitaries - at
least not straightforwardly. Here, we show for a large class of these operators
that they do generate unitaries in a well defined way, and that these operators
even generate the entire unitary group of the Hilbert space. This shows that
merely symmetric operators, in addition to describing unsharp physical
entities, may indeed also play a r{\^o}le in the generation of symmetries, e.g.
within a fundamental theory of quantum gravity.Comment: 23 pages, LaTe
On Fields with Finite Information Density
The existence of a natural ultraviolet cutoff at the Planck scale is widely
expected. In a previous Letter, it has been proposed to model this cutoff as an
information density bound by utilizing suitably generalized methods from the
mathematical theory of communication. Here, we prove the mathematical
conjectures that were made in this Letter.Comment: 31 pages, to appear in Phys.Rev.
Mimimal Length Uncertainty Principle and the Transplanckian Problem of Black Hole Physics
The minimal length uncertainty principle of Kempf, Mangano and Mann (KMM), as
derived from a mutilated quantum commutator between coordinate and momentum, is
applied to describe the modes and wave packets of Hawking particles evaporated
from a black hole. The transplanckian problem is successfully confronted in
that the Hawking particle no longer hugs the horizon at arbitrarily close
distances. Rather the mode of Schwarzschild frequency deviates from
the conventional trajectory when the coordinate is given by in units of the non local distance legislated
into the uncertainty relation. Wave packets straddle the horizon and spread out
to fill the whole non local region. The charge carried by the packet (in the
sense of the amount of "stuff" carried by the Klein--Gordon field) is not
conserved in the non--local region and rapidly decreases to zero as time
decreases. Read in the forward temporal direction, the non--local region thus
is the seat of production of the Hawking particle and its partner. The KMM
model was inspired by string theory for which the mutilated commutator has been
proposed to describe an effective theory of high momentum scattering of zero
mass modes. It is here interpreted in terms of dissipation which gives rise to
the Hawking particle into a reservoir of other modes (of as yet unknown
origin). On this basis it is conjectured that the Bekenstein--Hawking entropy
finds its origin in the fluctuations of fields extending over the non local
region.Comment: 12 pages (LateX), 1 figur
Mode Generating Mechanism in Inflation with Cutoff
In most inflationary models, space-time inflated to the extent that modes of
cosmological size originated as modes of wavelengths at least several orders of
magnitude smaller than the Planck length. Recent studies confirmed that,
therefore, inflationary predictions for the cosmic microwave background
perturbations are generally sensitive to what is assumed about the Planck
scale. Here, we propose a framework for field theories on curved backgrounds
with a plausible type of ultraviolet cutoff. We find an explicit mechanism by
which during cosmic expansion new (comoving) modes are generated continuously.
Our results allow the numerical calculation of a prediction for the CMB
perturbation spectrum.Comment: 9 pages, LaTe
Resolution of null fiber and conormal bundles on the Lagrangian Grassmannian
We study the null fiber of a moment map related to dual pairs. We construct
an equivariant resolution of singularities of the null fiber, and get conormal
bundles of closed -orbits in the Lagrangian Grassmannian as the
categorical quotient. The conormal bundles thus obtained turn out to be a
resolution of singularities of the closure of nilpotent -orbits, which
is a "quotient" of the resolution of the null fiber.Comment: 17 pages; completely revised and add reference
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