Anomalous particle-production thresholds through systematic and non-systematic quantum-gravity effects

TL;DR

This paper explores how systematic and non-systematic quantum-gravity effects could cause observable anomalies in particle-production thresholds, highlighting differences in their theoretical implications and potential experimental signatures.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of systematic versus non-systematic quantum-gravity effects on particle-production thresholds, illustrating their distinct impacts.

Findings

Systematic effects shift observable predictions.

Non-systematic effects introduce fundamental uncertainties.

Differences in experimental signatures of the two effects.

Abstract

A growing number of studies is being devoted to the identification of plausible quantum properties of spacetime which might give rise to observably large effects. The literature on this subject is now relatively large, including studies in string theory, loop quantum gravity and noncommutative geometry. It is useful to divide the various proposals into proposals involving a systematic quantum-gravity effect (an effect that would shift the main/average prediction for a given observable quantity) and proposals involving a non-systematic quantum-gravity effect (an effect that would introduce new fundamental uncertanties in some observable quantity). The case of quantum-gravity-induced particle-production-threshold anomalies, a much studied example of potentially observable quantum-gravity effect, is here used as an example to illustrate the differences to be expected between systematic and non-systematic effects.