Saurya Das

Universality of quantum gravity corrections.

We show that the existence of a minimum measurable length and the related generalized uncertainty principle (GUP), predicted by theories of quantum gravity, influence all quantum Hamiltonians. Thus, they predict quantum gravity corrections to various quantum phenomena. We compute such corrections to the Lamb shift, the Landau levels, and the tunneling current in a scanning tunneling microscope. We show that these corrections can be interpreted in two ways: (a) either that they are exceedingly small, beyond the reach of current experiments, or (b) that they predict upper bounds on the quantum gravity parameter in the GUP, compatible with experiments at the electroweak scale. Thus, more accurate measurements in the future should either be able to test these predictions, or further tighten the above bounds and predict an intermediate length scale between the electroweak and the Planck scale.

Discreteness of space from the generalized uncertainty principle

Various approaches to Quantum Gravity (such as String Theory and Doubly Special Relativity), as well as black hole physics predict a minimum measurable length, or a maximum observable momentum, and related modifications of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to a so-called Generalized Uncertainty Principle (GUP). We propose a GUP consistent with String Theory, Doubly Special Relativity and black hole physics, and show that this modifies all quantum mechanical Hamiltonians. When applied to an elementary particle, it implies that the space which confines it must be quantized. This suggests that space itself is discrete, and that all measurable lengths are quantized in units of a fundamental length (which can be the Planck length). On the one hand, this signals the breakdown of the spacetime continuum picture near that scale, and on the other hand, it can predict an upper bound on the quantum gravity parameter in the GUP, from current observations. Furthermore, such fundamental discreteness of space may have observable consequences at length scales much larger than the Planck scale.

General logarithmic corrections to black hole entropy

We compute leading-order corrections to the entropy of any thermodynamic system due to small statistical fluctuations around equilibrium. When applied to black holes, these corrections are shown to be of the form −k ln(Area). For BTZ black holes, k = 3/2, as found earlier. We extend the result to anti-de Sitter Schwarzschild and Reissner–Nordstrom black holes in arbitrary dimensions. Finally we examine the role of conformal field theory in black-hole entropy and its corrections.

A proposal for testing quantum gravity in the lab

Attempts to formulate a quantum theory of gravitation are collectively known as quantum gravity. Various approaches to quantum gravity such as string theory and loop quantum gravity, as well as black hole physics and doubly special relativity theories predict a minimum measurable length, or a maximum observable momentum, and related modifications of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to a so-called generalized uncertainty principle (GUP). We have proposed a GUP consistent with string theory, black hole physics, and doubly special relativity theories and have showed that this modifies all quantum mechanical Hamiltonians. When applied to an elementary particle, it suggests that the space that confines it must be quantized, and in fact that all measurable lengths are quantized in units of a fundamental length (which can be the Planck length). On the one hand, this may signal the breakdown of the spacetime continuum picture near that scale, and on the other hand, it can predict an upper bound on the quantum gravity parameter in the GUP, from current observations. Furthermore, such fundamental discreteness of space may have observable consequences at length scales much larger than the Planck scale. Because this influences all the quantum Hamiltonians in an universal way, it predicts quantum gravity corrections to various quantum phenomena. Therefore, in the present work we compute these corrections to the Lamb shift, simple harmonic oscillator, Landau levels, and the tunneling current in a scanning tunneling microscope.

Will we observe black holes at the LHC

The generalized uncertainty principle, motivated by string theory and non-commutative quantum mechanics, suggests significant modifications to the Hawking temperature and evaporation process of black holes. For extra-dimensional gravity with Planck scale O(TeV), this leads to important changes in the formation and detection of black holes at the large hadron collider. The number of particles produced in Hawking evaporation decreases substantially. The evaporation ends when the black-hole mass is Planck scale, leaving a remnant and a consequent missing energy of order TeV. Furthermore, the minimum energy for black-hole formation in collisions is increased, and could even be increased to such an extent that no black holes are formed at LHC energies.The generalized uncertainty principle, motivated by string theory and non-commutative quantum mechanics, suggests significant modifications to the Hawking temperature and evaporation process of black holes. For extra-dimensional gravity with Planck scale O(TeV), this leads to important changes in the formation and detection of black holes at the the Large Hadron Collider. The number of particles produced in Hawking evaporation decreases substantially. The evaporation ends when the black hole mass is Planck scale, leaving a remnant and a consequent missing energy of order TeV. Furthermore, the minimum energy for black hole formation in collisions is increased, and could even be increased to such an extent that no black holes are formed at LHC energies.

Gravitational anomalies, Hawking radiation, and spherically symmetric black holes

Sherpa Romeo green journal. Open access article. Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) applies

Power-law corrections to entanglement entropy of horizons

We reexamine the idea that the origin of black-hole entropy may lie in the entanglement of quantum fields between the inside and outside of the horizon. Motivated by the observation that certain modes of gravitational fluctuations in a black-hole background behave as scalar fields, we compute the entanglement entropy of such a field, by tracing over its degrees of freedom inside a sphere. We show that while this entropy is proportional to the area of the sphere when the field is in its ground state, a correction term proportional to a fractional power of area results when the field is in a superposition of ground and excited states. The area law is thus recovered for large areas. Further, we identify the location of the degrees of freedom that give rise to the above entropy.

Conserved quantities in Kerr-anti-de Sitter spacetimes in various dimensions

We compute the conserved charges for Kerr anti-de Sitter spacetimes in various dimensions using the conformal and the counterterm prescriptions. We show that the conserved charge corresponding to the global timelike killing vector computed by the two methods differ by a constant dependent on the rotation parameter and cosmological constant in odd spacetime dimensions, whereas the charge corresponding to the rotational killing vector is the same in either approach. We comment on possible implications of our results to the AdS/CFT correspondence.

Spectrum of charged black holes—the big fix mechanism revisited

Following an earlier suggestion of the authors (Barvinsky A and Kunstatter G 1997 Mass spectrum for black holes in generic 2-D dilaton gravity Proc. 2nd International A D Sakharov Conference on Physics ed I M Dremin and A M Seminkhatov (Singapore: World Scientific) pp 210–15), we use some basic properties of Euclidean black hole thermodynamics and the quantum mechanics of systems with periodic phase space coordinate to derive the discrete two-parameter area spectrum of generic charged spherically symmetric black holes in any dimension. For the Reissner–Nordstrom black hole we get A/4G = π(2n + p + 1), where the integer p = 0, 1, 2,... gives the charge spectrum, with Q = ± √ p. The quantity π(2n + 1), n = 0, 1,..., gives a measure of the excess of the mass/energy over the critical minimum (i.e. extremal) value allowed for a given fixed charge Q. The classical critical bound cannot be saturated due to vacuum fluctuations of the horizon, so that generically extremal black holes do not appear in the physical spectrum. Consistency also requires the black hole charge to be an integer multiple of any fundamental elementary particle charge: Q = ±me, m = 0, 1, 2,.... As a by-product this yields a relation between the fine structure constant and integer parameters of the black hole—a kind of the Coleman big fix mechanism induced by black holes. In four dimensions, this relationship is e2/ = p/m2 and requires the fine structure constant to be a rational number. Finally, we prove that the horizon area is an adiabatic invariant, as has been conjectured previously.

GRAVITATIONAL ANOMALIES: A RECIPE FOR HAWKING RADIATION

Sherpa Romeo yellow journal. Preprint of an article published in International Journal of Modern Physics D