Disordered locality in loop quantum gravity states

TL;DR

This paper identifies a potential non-locality issue in loop quantum gravity, where microscopic structures may not align with the emergent macroscopic metric, possibly leading to disordered locality at low energies.

Contribution

It highlights a fundamental mismatch between micro-locality and macro-locality in loop quantum gravity and discusses the implications of disordered locality.

Findings

Potential disordered locality could be rare and hard to detect.

Micro-macro locality mismatch may affect low-energy physics.

Identifies a conceptual challenge in loop quantum gravity models.

Abstract

We show that loop quantum gravity suffers from a potential problem with non-locality, coming from a mismatch between micro-locality, as defined by the combinatorial structures of their microscopic states, and macro-locality, defined by the metric which emerges from the low energy limit. As a result, the low energy limit may suffer from a disordered locality characterized by identifications of far away points. We argue that if such defects in locality are rare enough they will be difficult to detect.