Minimal Length Scale Scenarios for Quantum Gravity

By Sabine Hossenfelder. Living Reviews in Relativity, 2012

749 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We review the question of whether the fundamental laws of nature limit our ability to probe arbitrarily short distances. First, we examine what insights can be gained from thought experiments for probes of shortest distances, and summarize what can be learned from different approaches to a theory of quantum gravity. Then we discuss some models that have been developed to implement a minimal length scale in quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. These models have entered the literature as the generalized uncertainty principle or the modified dispersion relation, and have allowed the study of the effects of a minimal length scale in quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics, thermodynamics, black-hole physics and cosmology. Finally, we touch upon the question of ways to circumvent the manifestation of a minimal length scale in short-distance physics.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5f862fe7dfc936d8a8c6ccbc0a2400b46a38121b

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

1. Abdel Nasser Tawfik
2. A. Diab
3. Steven Carlip
4. R. Wald
5. Markus Aspelmeyer
6. V. Brukner

In Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

1. Abdel Nasser Tawfik
2. A. Diab
3. Dong-han Yeom
4. Y. Ong
5. Steven Carlip
6. R. Wald
7. Markus Aspelmeyer
8. Pisin Chen

Citations in the corpus

• Generalized Uncertainty Principle: Approaches and Applications (2014, background): “It dates back to 1930’s [4, 5], where it was found that the effect of regularizations with respect to the cut-off should be the same as that of a fundamentally discrete space-time [3].”
• Black Hole Remnants and the Information Loss Paradox (2014, background): “[For a review on minimal length in quantum gravity, see [73];”
• Quantum superposition of massive objects and the quantization of gravity (2018, result): “sion that localization of any body cannot be achieved to better than a Planck length—a conclusion that has been previously reached by many authors; see [34], [35, 36] and references therein.”
• Dimension and dimensional reduction in quantum gravity (2017, background): “One can impose a “generalized uncertainty principle” that changes the Heisenberg commutation relations to incorporate a minimum uncertainty in length [47,48]; this can also lead to dimensional reduction, although the details depend on the exact assumptions.”