Against the Tide. A Critical Review by Scientists of How Physics and Astronomy Get Done

Nobody should have a monopoly of the truth in this universe. The censorship and suppression of challenging ideas against the tide of mainstream research, the blacklisting of scientists, for instance, is neither the best way to do and filter science, nor to promote progress in the human knowledge. The removal of good and novel ideas from the scientific stage is very detrimental to the pursuit of the truth. There are instances in which a mere unqualified belief can occasionally be converted into a generally accepted scientific theory through the screening action of refereed literature and meetings planned by the scientific organizing committees and through the distribution of funds controlled by "club opinions". It leads to unitary paradigms and unitary thinking not necessarily associated to the unique truth. This is the topic of this book: to critically analyze the problems of the official (and sometimes illicit) mechanisms under which current science (physics and astronomy in particular) is being administered and filtered today, along with the onerous consequences these mechanisms have on all of us.\ud \ud The authors, all of them professional researchers, reveal a pessimistic view of the miseries of the actual system, while a glimmer of hope remains in the "leitmotiv" claim towards the freedom in doing research and attaining an acceptable level of ethics in science

The Riemann Hypothesis is a consequence of CT-invariant Quantum Mechanics

The Riemann’s hypothesis (RH) states that the nontrivial zeros of the Riemann zeta-function are of the form sn = 1/2 + iλn. By constructing a continuous family of scaling-like operators involving the Gauss-Jacobi theta series and by invoking a novel CT-invariant Quantum Mechanics, involving a judicious charge conjugation C and time reversal T operation, we show why the Riemann Hypothesis is true. An infinite family of theta series and their Mellin transform leads to the same conclusions.

Bohm's potential, classical/quantum duality and repulsive gravity

We propose the notion of a classical/quantum duality in the gravitational case (it can be extended to other interactions). By this one means exchanging Bohm's quantum potential for the classical potential VQ↔V in the stationary quantum Hamilton–Jacobi equation (QHJE) so that VQ+V=−V0 (ground state energy). Despite that the corresponding Schrödinger equations, and their solutions differ, their associated quantum Hamilton–Jacobi equation, and ground state energy remains the same. This is how the classical/quantum duality is implemented. In this scenario Bohm's quantum potential (which coincides with the attractive Newtonian potential) is now correlated to a classical repulsive gravitational potential (plus a constant). These results suggest that there might be a quantum origin to the classical repulsive gravitational behavior (of the accelerated expansion) of the universe which is based on this notion of classical/quantum duality. We hope that the notion of classical/quantum duality raised in this work in connection to the QHJE may cast further light into the deep interplay between gravity and quantum mechanics. Keywords: Bohm's potential, Quantum mechanics, (Repulsive) gravit

The Riemann hypothesis and tachyonic off-shell string scattering amplitudes

The study of the $$\mathbf{4}$$-tachyon off-shell string scattering amplitude $$A_4 (s, t, u)$$, based on Witten’s open string field theory, reveals the existence of poles in the s-channel and associated to a continuum of complex “spins” J. The latter J belong to the Regge trajectories in the t, u channels which are defined by $$- J (t) = - 1 - { 1\over 2 } t = \beta (t)= { 1\over 2 } + i \lambda$$; $$- J (u) = - 1 - { 1\over 2 } u = \gamma (u) = { 1\over 2 } - i \lambda$$, with $$\lambda = real$$. These values of $$\beta ( t ), \gamma (u)$$ given by $${ 1\over 2 } \pm i \lambda$$, respectively, coincide precisely with the location of the critical line of nontrivial Riemann zeta zeros $$\zeta (z_n = { 1\over 2 } \pm i \lambda _n) = 0$$. It is argued that despite assigning angular momentum (spin) values J to the off-shell mass values of the external off-shell tachyons along their Regge trajectories is not physically meaningful, their net zero-spin value $$J ( k_1 ) + J (k_2) = J ( k_3 ) + J ( k_4 ) = 0$$ is physically meaningful because the on-shell tachyon exchanged in the s-channel has a physically well defined zero-spin. We proceed to prove that if there were nontrivial zeta zeros (violating the Riemann Hypothesis) outside the critical line $$Real~ z = 1/2$$ (but inside the critical strip) these putative zeros $$don't$$ correspond to any poles of the $$\mathbf{4}$$-tachyon off-shell string scattering amplitude $$A_4 (s, t, u)$$. We finalize with some concluding remarks on the zeros of sinh(z) given by $$z = 0 + i 2 \pi n$$, continuous spins, non-commutative geometry and other relevant topics

Asymptotic safety in quantum gravity and diffeomorphic non-isometric metric solutions to the Schwarzschild metric

We revisit the construction of diffeomorphic but not isometric metric solutions to the Schwarzschild metric. These solutions require the introduction of non-trivial areal–radial functions and are characterized by the key property that the radial horizon’s location is displaced continuously towards the singularity (r = 0). In the limiting case scenario the location of the singularity and horizon merges and any in-falling observer hits a null singularity at the very moment they cross the horizon. This fact may have important consequences for the resolution of the fire wall problem and the complementarity controversy in black holes. This construction allows us to borrow the results over the past two decades pertaining to the study of the renormalization group improvement of Einstein’s equations, which was based on the possibility that quantum Einstein gravity may be non-perturbatively renormalizable and asymptotically safe because of the presence of interacting (non-Gaussian) ultraviolet fixed points. The particular areal–radial function that eliminates the interior of a black hole, and furnishes a truly static metric solution everywhere, is used to establish the desired energy-scale relation k = k(r), which is obtained from the k (energy) dependent modifications to the running Newtonian coupling G(k), cosmological constant Λ(k), and space–time metric gij,(k)(x). (Anti) de Sitter – Schwarzschild metrics are also explored as examples. We conclude with a discussion of the role that asymptotic safety may have in the geometry of phase spaces (cotangent bundles of space–time) (i.e., in establishing a quantum space–time geometry or classical phase geometry correspondence gij,(k)(x) ↔ gij(x, E)).The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author

Kantowski-Sachs Cosmology, Weyl Geometry and Asymptotic Safety in Quantum Gravity

A brief review of the essentials of Asymptotic Safety and the Renormalization Group (RG) improvement of the Schwarzschild Black Hole that removes the r = 0 singularity is presented. It is followed with a RG-improvement of the Kantowski-Sachs metric associated with a Schwarzschild black hole interior and such that there is no singularity at t = 0 due to the running Newtonian coupling G(t) (vanishing at t = 0). Two temporal horizons at t _- \simeq t_P and t_+ \simeq t_H are found. For times below the Planck scale tThe accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author

Thermal Relativity, Corrections to Black-Hole Entropy, Born's Reciprocal Relativity Theory and Quantum Gravity

Starting with a brief description of Born’s reciprocal relativity theory (BRRT), based on a maximal proper force, maximal speed of light, and inertial and non-inertial observers, we derive the exact thermal relativistic corrections to the Schwarzschild, Reissner–Nordstrom, and Kerr–Newman black hole entropies and provide a detailed analysis of the many novel applications and consequences to the physics of black holes, quantum gravity, minimal area, minimal mass, Yang–Mills mass gap, information paradox, arrow of time, dark matter, and dark energy. We finish by outlining our proposal towards a space–time–matter unification program where matter can be converted into spacetime quanta and vice versa.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author

A Hamiltonian model of the Fibonacci quasicrystal using non-local interactions: simulations and spectral analysis

This article presents a Hamiltonian architecture based on vertex types and empires for demonstrating the emergence of aperiodic order in one dimension by a suitable prescription for breaking translation symmetry. At the outset, the paper presents different algorithmic, geometrical, and algebraic methods of constructing empires of vertex configurations of a given lattice. These empires have non-local scope and form the building blocks of the proposed lattice model. This model is tested via Monte Carlo simulations beginning with randomly arranged N tiles. The simulations clearly establish the Fibonacci configuration, which is a one-dimensional quasicrystal of length N, as the final relaxed state of the system. The Hamiltonian is promoted to a matrix operator form by performing dyadic tensor products of pairs of interacting empire vectors followed by a summation over all permissible configurations. A spectral analysis of the Hamiltonian matrix is performed and a theoretical method is presented to find the exact solution of the attractor configuration that is given by the Fibonacci chain as predicted by the simulations. Finally, a precise theoretical explanation is provided which shows that the Fibonacci chain is the most probable ground state. The proposed Hamiltonian is a mathematical model of the one dimensional Fibonacci quasicrystal