A model of quantum gravity with emergent spacetime

TL;DR

This paper proposes a quantum gravity model where spacetime's dimension, topology, and geometry emerge dynamically from a matrix-based microscopic description, reproducing classical general relativity in the appropriate limit.

Contribution

It introduces a novel matrix model that generates emergent spacetime with dynamical geometry and topology, including a gauge symmetry extending diffeomorphisms in arbitrary dimensions.

Findings

Emergent (3+1)-dimensional de Sitter-like spacetimes from the model

Reproduction of classical general relativity constraint algebra in the classical limit

Identification of spin-two modes as geometric degrees of freedom

Abstract

We construct a model of quantum gravity in which dimension, topology and geometry of spacetime are dynamical. The microscopic degree of freedom is a real rectangular matrix whose rows label internal flavours, and columns label spatial sites. In the limit that the size of the matrix is large, the sites can collectively form a spatial manifold. The manifold is determined from the pattern of entanglement present across local Hilbert spaces associated with column vectors of the matrix. With no structure of manifold fixed in the background, the spacetime gauge symmetry is generalized to a group that includes diffeomorphism in arbitrary dimensions. The momentum and Hamiltonian that generate the generalized diffeomorphism obey a first-class constraint algebra at the quantum level. In the classical limit, the constraint algebra of the general relativity is reproduced as a special case. The first-class nature of the algebra allows one to express the projection of a quantum state of the matrix to a gauge-invariant state as a path integration of dynamical variables that describe collective fluctuations of the matrix. The collective variables describe dynamics of emergent spacetime, where multi-fingered times arise as Lagrangian multipliers that enforce the gauge constraints. If the quantum state has a local structure of entanglement, a smooth spacetime with well-defined dimension, topology, signature and geometry emerges at the saddle-point, and the spin two mode that determines the geometry can be identified. We find a saddle-point solution that describes a series of (3+1)-dimensional de Sitter-like spacetimes with the Lorentzian signature bridged by Euclidean spaces in between. Fluctuations of the collective variables are described by bi-local fields that propagate in the spacetime set up by the saddle-point solution.