The Self-Organized de Sitter Universe

Abstract

We propose a theory of quantum gravity which formulates the quantum theory as a nonperturbative path integral, where each spacetime history appears with a weight given by the exponentiated Einstein-Hilbert action of the corresponding causal geometry. The path integral is diffeomorphism-invariant (only geometries appear) and background-independent. The theory can be investigated by computer simulations, which show that a de Sitter universe emerges on large scales. This emergence is of an entropic, self-organizing nature, with the weight of the Einstein-Hilbert action playing a minor role. Also the quantum fluctuations around this de Sitter universe can be studied quantitatively and remain small until one gets close to the Planck scale. The structures found to describe Planck-scale gravity are reminiscent of certain aspects of condensed-matter systems.

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References in corpus (4)

• Planckian Birth of the Quantum de Sitter Universe
• The Nonperturbative Quantum de Sitter Universe
• The Emergence of Spacetime, or, Quantum Gravity on Your Desktop
• The Return of a Static Universe and the End of Cosmology

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Cosmology of the Lifshitz universe
• The Nonperturbative Quantum de Sitter Universe
• A quantum Bose-Hubbard model with evolving graph as toy model for emergent spacetime
• An introduction to quantum gravity
• Order out of Randomness : Self-Organization Processes in Astrophysics
• Background independent condensed matter models for quantum gravity
• CDT---an Entropic Theory of Quantum Gravity
• Closed Timelike Curves, Singularities and Causality: A Survey from Gödel to Chronological Protection
• A causal perspective on random geometry
• de Sitter gravity from lattice gauge theory