Effective Spacetime: Understanding Emergence in Effective Field Theory and Quantum Gravity

✍ Scribed by Karen Crowther (auth.)

• Publisher: Springer International Publishing
• Year: 2016
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 209
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book discusses the notion that quantum gravity may represent the "breakdown" of spacetime at extremely high energy scales. If spacetime does not exist at the fundamental level, then it has to be considered "emergent", in other words an effective structure, valid at low energy scales. The author develops a conception of emergence appropriate to effective theories in physics, and shows how it applies (or could apply) in various approaches to quantum gravity, including condensed matter approaches, discrete approaches, and loop quantum gravity.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-ix
Introduction: Spacetime and Quantum Gravity....Pages 1-37
Emergence and Reduction....Pages 39-58
Effective Field Theory....Pages 59-100
Universality, Higher Organising Principles and Emergence....Pages 101-127
Spacetime as Described by EFT....Pages 129-145
Discrete Approaches to Quantum Gravity....Pages 147-178
Loop Quantum Gravity....Pages 179-201
Conclusion: Now Here from Nowhere....Pages 203-205

✦ Subjects

Classical and Quantum Gravitation, Relativity Theory; Cosmology; History and Philosophical Foundations of Physics