Physical Constraints on Quantum Deformations of Spacetime Symmetries

In this work we study the deformations into Lie bialgebras of the three relativistic Lie algebras: de Sitter, Anti-de Sitter and Poincar\'e, which describe the symmetries of the three maximally symmetric spacetimes. These algebras represent the centrepiece of the kinematics of special relativity (and its analogue in (Anti-)de Sitter spacetime), and provide the simplest framework to build physical models in which inertial observers are equivalent. Such a property can be expected to be preserved by Quantum Gravity, a theory which should build a length/energy scale into the microscopic structure of spacetime. Quantum groups, and their infinitesimal version `Lie bialgebras', allow to encode such a scale into a noncommutativity of the algebra of functions over the group (and over spacetime, when the group acts on a homogeneous space). In 2+1 dimensions we have evidence that the vacuum state of Quantum Gravity is one such `noncommutative spacetime' whose symmetries are described by a Lie bialgebra. It is then of great interest to study the possible Lie bialgebra deformations of the relativistic Lie algebras. In this paper, we develop a classification of such deformations in 2, 3 and 4 spacetime dimensions, based on physical requirements based on dimensional analysis, on various degrees of `manifest isotropy' (which implies that certain symmetries, i.e. Lorentz transformations or rotations, are `more classical'), and on discrete symmetries like P and T. On top of a series of new results in 3 and 4 dimensions, we find a no-go theorem for the Lie bialgebras in 4 dimensions, which singles out the well-known `$\kappa$-deformation' as the only one that depends on the first power of the Planck length, or, alternatively, that possesses `manifest' spatial isotropy.Comment: 13 pages, 1 table, matches version published on Nuclear Physics

Light Cone in a Quantum Spacetime

Noncommutative spacetimes are a proposed effective description of the low-energy regime of Quantum Gravity. Defining the microcausality relations of a scalar quantum field theory on the $\kappa$-Minkowski noncommutative spacetime allows us to define for the first time a notion of light-cone in a quantum spacetime. This allows us to reach two conclusions. First, the majority of the literature on $\kappa$-Minkowski suggests that this spacetime allows superluminal propagation of particles. The structure of the light-cone we introduced allows to rule this out, thereby excluding the possibility of constraining the relevant models with observations of in-vacuo dispersion of Gamma Ray Burst photons. Second, we are able to reject a claim made in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 211601 (2010)], according to which the light-cone of the $\kappa$-Minkowski spacetime has a "blurry" region of Planck-length thickness, independently of the distance of the two events considered. Such an effect would be hopeless to measure. Our analysis reveals that the thickness of the region where the notion of timelike and spacelike separations blurs grows like the square root of the distance. This magnifies the effect, e.g. in the case of cosmological distances, by 30 orders of magnitude.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, matches version accepted by Phys. Lett.

Extended noncommutative Minkowski spacetimes and hybrid gauge symmetries

We study the Lie bialgebra structures that can be built on the one-dimensional central extension of the Poincar\'e and (A)dS algebras in (1+1) dimensions. These central extensions admit more than one interpretation, but the simplest one is that they describe the symmetries of (the noncommutative deformation of) an Abelian gauge theory, $U(1)$ or $SO(2)$ on the (1+1) dimensional Minkowski or (A)dS spacetime. We show that this highlights the possibility that the algebra of functions on the gauge bundle becomes noncommutative. This is a new way in which the Coleman-Mandula theorem could be circumvented by noncommutative structures, and it is related to a mixing of spacetime and gauge symmetry generators when they act on tensor-product states. We obtain all Lie bialgebra structures on centrally-extended Poincar\'e and (A)dS which are coisotropic w.r.t. the Lorentz algebra, and therefore all of them admit the construction of a noncommutative principal gauge bundle on a quantum homogeneous Minkowski spacetime. It is shown that several different types of hybrid noncommutativity between the spacetime and gauge coordinates are allowed by introducing quantum extended Poincar\'e symmetries. In one of these cases, an alternative interpretation of the central extension leads to a new description of the well-known canonical noncommutative spacetime as the quantum homogeneous space of a quantum Poincar\'e algebra of symmetries.Comment: 18 page