Interferometric Tests of Planckian Quantum Geometry Models

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the potential quantum geometric effects on interferometer measurements, finding that standard physics predicts negligible effects, but some non-standard models could produce detectable signals near current experimental limits.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of quantum geometry effects on interferometers, constraining non-standard models using LIGO data and proposing new signal noise spectra predictions.

Findings

Standard field theory predicts negligible quantum geometric effects.

Certain non-standard models are constrained by LIGO upper bounds.

Predicted signals in some models are near current experimental detection thresholds.

Abstract

The effect of Planck scale quantum geometrical effects on measurements with interferometers is estimated with standard physics, and with a variety of proposed extensions. It is shown that effects are negligible in standard field theory with canonically quantized gravity. Statistical noise levels are estimated in a variety of proposals for non-standard metric fluctuations, and these alternatives are constrained using upper bounds on stochastic metric fluctuations from LIGO. Idealized models of several interferometer system architectures are used to predict signal noise spectra in a quantum geometry that cannot be described by a fluctuating metric, in which position noise arises from holographic bounds on directional information. Predictions in this case are shown to be close to current and projected experimental bounds.