Photons with sub-Planckian Energy Cannot Efficiently Probe Space-Time Foam

TL;DR

This paper argues that photons with energies below the Planck scale cannot effectively detect space-time quantum fluctuations because wave optics averaging significantly reduces observable phase distortions.

Contribution

It introduces a wave optics-based model showing that low-energy photons are ineffective probes of space-time foam due to diffraction effects.

Findings

Wave optics reduces phase distortions caused by quantum fluctuations.

Suppression factor is proportional to wavelength over Planck length.

Astronomical photons have at least 10^29 suppression factor.

Abstract

Extra-galactic sources of photons have been used to constrain space-time quantum fluctuations in the Universe. In these proposals, the fundamental "fuzziness" of distance caused by space-time quantum fluctuations has been directly identified with fluctuations in optical paths. Phase-front corrugations deduced from these optical-path fluctuations are then applied to light from extra-galactic point sources, and used to constrain various models of quantum gravity. However, when a photon propagates in three spatial dimensions, it does not follow a specific ray, but rather samples a finite, three-dimensional region around that ray --- thereby averaging over space-time quantum fluctuations all through that region. We use a simple, random-walk type model to demonstrate that, once the appropriate wave optics is applied, the averaging of neighboring space-time fluctuations will cause much less distortion to the phase front. In our model, the extra suppression factor due to diffraction is the wave length in units of the Planck length, which is at least $10^{29}$ for astronomical observations.