Award-Winning EssayNo Access

Quantum gravity phenomenology in the infrared

Laurent Freidel

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, 31 Caroline Street N, Waterloo, ON, Canada

E-mail Address: [email protected]

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Jerzy Kowalski-Glikman

Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Wroclaw, Plac Maksa Borna 9, 50-204 Wroclaw, Poland

National Centre for Nuclear Research, Pasteura 7, 02-093 Warsaw, Poland

E-mail Address: [email protected]

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Robert G. Leigh

Illinois Center for Advanced Studies of the Universe, University of Illinois, 1110 West Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801, USA

Department of Physics, University of Illinois, 1110 West Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801, USA

E-mail Address: [email protected]

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, and

Djordje Minic

Department of Physics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA

E-mail Address: [email protected]

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https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218271821410029Cited by:7 (Source: Crossref)

This article is part of the issue:

SPECIAL ISSUE: Selected Essays from the Annual Essay Competition of the Gravity Research Foundation 2021
Editor: D. V. Ahluwalia

Abstract

Quantum gravity effects are traditionally tied to short distances and high energies. In this essay, we argue that, perhaps surprisingly, quantum gravity may have important consequences for the phenomenology of the infrared. We center our discussion around a conception of quantum gravity involving a notion of quantum spacetime that arises in metastring theory. This theory allows for an evolution of a cosmological Universe in which string-dual degrees of freedom decouple as the Universe ages. Importantly, such an implementation of quantum gravity allows for the inclusion of a fundamental length scale without introducing the fundamental breaking of Lorentz symmetry. The mechanism seems to have potential for an entirely novel source for dark matter/energy. The simplest observational consequences of this scenario may very well be residual infrared modifications that emerge through the evolution of the Universe.

This essay is awarded second prize in the 2021 Essay Competition of the Gravity Research Foundation.

Keywords:

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