Butterfield, Jeremy and Dowker, Fay (2021) Recovering General Relativity from a Planck scale discrete theory of quantum gravity. [Preprint]

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Abstract

An argument is presented that if a theory of quantum gravity is physically discrete at the Planck scale and the theory recovers General Relativity as an approximation, then, at the current stage of our knowledge, causal sets must arise within the theory, even if they are not its basis.

We show in particular that an apparent alternative to causal sets, viz. a certain sort of discrete Lorentzian simplicial complex, cannot recover General Relativistic spacetimes in the appropriately unique way. For it cannot discriminate between Minkowski spacetime and a spacetime with a certain sort of gravitational wave burst.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Butterfield, Jeremy jb56@cam.ac.uk 0000-0002-0215-5802 Dowker, Fay f.dowker@imperial.ac.uk
Additional Information:	Also available on the physics arxiv as preprint: 2106.01297
Keywords:	causal sets, general relativity, discrete vs. continuous, simplicial complexes, approximation
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics > Cosmology Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Gravity Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Depositing User:	Jeremy Butterfield
Date Deposited:	03 Jun 2021 14:20
Last Modified:	03 Jun 2021 14:20
Item ID:	19150
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics > Cosmology Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Gravity Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Date:	June 2021
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/19150

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