Planck Fluctuations, Measurement Uncertainties and the Holographic Principle

TL;DR

This paper critically examines Planck scale fluctuations and the holographic principle, revealing their independence but also their combined implications for understanding quantum gravity and suggesting a new form of quantum statistical mechanics.

Contribution

It clarifies the independence of fluctuation results and the holographic hypothesis, and explores their combined implications for Planck scale physics and quantum statistical mechanics.

Findings

Fluctuation results and holographic hypothesis are logically independent.

Combining these topics yields insights into Planck scale fluctuation structure.

Suggests a new form of quantum statistical mechanics for strongly correlated degrees of freedom.

Abstract

Starting from a critical analysis of recently reported surprisingly large uncertainties in length and position measurements deduced within the framework of quantum gravity, we embark on an investigation both of the correlation structure of Planck scale fluctuations and the role the holographic hypothesis is possibly playing in this context. While we prove the logical independence of the fluctuation results and the holographic hypothesis (in contrast to some recent statements in that direction) we show that by combining these two topics one can draw quite strong and interesting conclusions about the fluctuation structure and the microscopic dynamics on the Planck scale. We further argue that these findings point to a possibly new and generalized form of quantum statistical mechanics of strongly (anti)correlated systems of degrees of freedom in this fundamental regime.