An increasingly popular approach to quantum gravity rests on the idea that gravity (and maybe electromagnetism and the other gauge fields) might be an 'emergent phenomenon', in the sense of representing a collective behaviour resulting from a very different microscopic physics. A prominent example of this approach is the condensed matter scheme for quantum gravity, which considers the possibility that gravity emerges as an effective low-energy phenomenon from the quantum vacuum in a way similar to the emergence of collective excitations in condensed matter systems. This condensed matter view of the quantum vacuum clearly hints that, while the term 'ether' has been discredited for about a century, quantum gravity holds many (if not all) of the characteristics that have led people in the past to label various hypothetical substances with the term 'ether'. Since the last burst of enthusiasm for an ether, at the end of the 19th century, was brought to the grave in part by the performance of a series of important experiments in interferometry, the suggestion then naturally arises that maybe interferometry could also play a role in the current discussion on quantum gravity. We will highlight some aspects of this suggestion in the context of the condensed matter scheme for emergent gravity.
The concept of a horizon known from general relativity describes the loss of causal connection and can be applied to non-gravitational scenarios such as out-of-equilibrium condensed-matter systems in the laboratory. This analogy facilitates the identification and theoretical study (e.g., regarding the trans-Planckian problem) and possibly the experimental verification of "exotic" effects known from gravity and cosmology, such as Hawking radiation. Furthermore, it yields a unified description and better understanding of non-equilibrium phenomena in condensed matter systems and their universal f…
We investigate the behaviour of quantum fields coupled to a spacetime geometry exhibiting finite regions of Euclidean (Riemannian) signature. Although from a gravity perspective this situation might seem somewhat far fetched, we will demonstrate its direct physical relevance for an explicitly realizable condensed matter system whose linearized perturbations experience an effective emergent spacetime geometry with externally controllable signature. This effective geometry is intrinsically quantum in origin, and its signature is determined by the details of the microscopic structure. At the leve…
In this paper, we examine the possibility to implement some form of emergent Newtonian gravity in a generic multi-component Bose--Einstein condensate. Parallely to what happens for the emergence of low energy Lorentz invariance, strong requirements have to be imposed on the underlying condensed matter model. We will show, within a simplified model, that the presence of a global symmetry alleviates the problems associated to Lorentz violation, allows the presence of a long range potential, to which the analogue matter fields (the quasi-particles) are coupled following a weaker form of equivalen…
We give a critical overview of various attempts to describe gravity as an emergent phenomenon, starting from examples of condensed matter physics, to arrive to more sophisticated pregeometric models. The common line of thought is to view the graviton as a composite particle/collective mode. However, we will describe many different ways in which this idea is realized in practice.
The holographic correspondence creates an interface between classical gravitational physics and the dynamics of strongly interacting quantum field theories. This chapter will relate the physics of charged, asymptotically Anti-de Sitter spacetimes to the phenomenology of low temperature critical phases of condensed matter. Common essential features will characterise both the gravitational and field theoretic systems. Firstly, an emergent scaling symmetry at the lowest energy scales appears as an emergent isometry in the interior, `near horizon' regime of the spacetime. Secondly, the field theor…
Quantum Graphity is an approach to quantum gravity based on a background independent formulation of condensed matter systems on graphs. We summarize recent results obtained on the notion of emergent geometry from the point of view of a particle hopping on the graph. We discuss the role of connectivity in emergent Lorentzian perturbations in a curved background and the Bose--Hubbard (BH) model defined on graphs with particular symmetries.
The phenomenon of emergent physics in condensed-matter many-body systems has become the paradigm of modern physics, and can probably also be applied to high-energy physics and cosmology. This encouraging fact comes from the universal properties of the ground state (the analog of the quantum vacuum) in fermionic many-body systems, described in terms of the momentum-space topology. In one of the two generic universality classes of fermionic quantum vacua the gauge fields, chiral fermions, Lorentz invariance, gravity, relativistic spin, and other features of the Standard Model gradually emerge at…
Effective field theories (EFTs) have been widely used as a framework in order to place constraints on the Planck suppressed Lorentz violations predicted by various models of quantum gravity. There are however technical problems in the EFT framework when it comes to ensuring that small Lorentz violations remain small -- this is the essence of the "naturalness" problem. Herein we present an "emergent" space-time model, based on the "analogue gravity'' programme, by investigating a specific condensed-matter system that is in principle capable of simulating the salient features of an EFT framework…
All existing experimental results are currently interpreted using classical geometry. However, there are theoretical reasons to suspect that at a deeper level, geometry emerges as an approximate macroscopic behavior of a quantum system at the Planck scale. If directions in emergent quantum geometry do not commute, new quantum-geometrical degrees of freedom can produce detectable macroscopic deviations from classicality: spatially coherent, transverse position indeterminacy between any pair of world lines, with a displacement amplitude much larger than the Planck length. Positions of separate b…
In this essay we marshal evidence suggesting that Einstein gravity may be an emergent phenomenon, one that is not ``fundamental'' but rather is an almost automatic low-energy long-distance consequence of a wide class of theories. Specifically, the emergence of a curved spacetime ``effective Lorentzian geometry'' is a common generic result of linearizing a classical scalar field theory around some non-trivial background. This explains why so many different ``analog models'' of general relativity have recently been developed based on condensed matter physics; there is something more fundamental …
Holographic modeling of strongly correlated many-body systems motivates the study of novel spacetime geometries where the scaling behavior of quantum critical systems is encoded into spacetime symmetries. Einstein-Dilaton-Maxwell theory has planar black brane solutions that exhibit Lifshitz scaling and in some cases hyperscaling violation. Entanglement entropy and Wilson loops in the dual field theory are studied by inserting simple geometric probes involving minimal surfaces into the black brane geometry. Coupling to background matter fields leads to interesting low-energy behavior in hologra…
The contemporary physics has revealed growing evidences that the emergence can be applied to not only biology and condensed matter systems but also gravity and spacetime. We observe that noncommutative spacetime necessarily implies emergent spacetime if spacetime at microscopic scales should be viewed as noncommutative. Since the emergent spacetime is a new fundamental paradigm for quantum gravity, it is necessary to reexamine all the rationales to introduce the multiverse hypothesis from the standpoint of emergent spacetime. We argue that the emergent spacetime certainly opens a new perspecti…
We discuss the problem of the spectral function of vacuum energy. In traditional approach the ultraviolet divergencies of the vacuum energy are cancelled by imposing relations between different quantum fields and their masses. The emergent theories suggest that the microscopic degrees of the underlying quantum vacuum add to the spectral function and their contribution cancels the diverging zero point energy of quantum fields. Examples of the spectral function of the vacuum energy in the condensed-matter systems with relativity emerging at low energy are presented. In the Sakharov induced gravi…
We explore the phenomenon of emergent Lorentz invariance in strongly coupled theories. The strong dynamics is handled using the gauge/gravity correspondence. We analyze how the renormalization group flow towards Lorentz invariance is reflected in the two-point functions of local operators and in the dispersion relations of the bound states. The deviations of these observables from the relativistic form at low energies are found to be power-law suppressed by the ratio of the infrared and ultraviolet scales. We show that in a certain subclass of models the velocities of the light bound states st…
We offer a perspective on some recent results obtained in the context of the group field theory approach to quantum gravity, on top of reviewing them briefly. These concern a natural mechanism for the emergence of non-commutative field theories for matter directly from the GFT action, in both 3 and 4 dimensions and in both Riemannian and Lorentzian signatures. As such they represent an important step, we argue, in bridging the gap between a quantum, discrete picture of a pre-geometric spacetime and the effective continuum geometric physics of gravity and matter, using ideas and tools from fiel…
A number of recent proposals for a quantum theory of gravity are based on the idea that spacetime geometry and gravity are derivative concepts and only apply at an approximate level. There are two fundamental challenges to any such approach. At the conceptual level, there is a clash between the "timelessness" of general relativity and emergence. Second, the lack of a fundamental spacetime makes difficult the straightforward application of well-known methods of statistical physics to the problem. We recently initiated a study of such problems using spin systems based on evolution of quantum net…
We study selected aspects of quantum gravity phenomenology inspired by the gravitational analogy in Bose--Einstein condensates (BECs). We first review the basic ideas and formalism of analogue gravity in BECs, with particular emphasis on the possibility of simulating black holes. The non-relativistic, 'superluminal' modifications of the dispersion relation in a BEC beyond the hydrodynamic limit make it a particularly interesting model for many scenarios of quantum gravity phenomenology which consider a possible violation of local Lorentz invariance at high energies. In particular, these modifi…
Recently Horava proposed a model for gravity which is described by the Einstein action in the infrared, but lacks the Lorentz invariance in the high-energy region where it experiences the anisotropic scaling. We test this proposal using two condensed matter examples of emergent gravity: acoustic gravity and gravity emerging in the fermionic systems with Fermi points. We suggest that quantum hydrodynamics, which together with the quantum gravity is the non-renormalizable theory, may exhibit the anisotropic scaling in agreement with the proposal. The Fermi point scenario of emergent general rela…
A possible way out of the conundrum of quantum gravity is the proposal that general relativity (GR) is not a fundamental theory but emerges from an underlying microscopic description. Despite recent interest in the emergent gravity program within the physics as well as the philosophy community, an assessment of the theoretical evidence for this idea is lacking at the moment. We intend to fill this gap in the literature by discussing the main arguments in favour of the hypothesis that the metric field and its dynamics are emergent. First, we distinguish between microstructure inspired from GR, …
We give a detailed description of electrodynamics as an emergent theory from condensed-matter-like structures, not only {\it per se} but also as a warm-up for the study of the much more complex case of gravity. We will concentrate on two scenarios that, although qualitatively different, share some important features, with the idea of extracting the basic generic ingredients that give rise to emergent electrodynamics and, more generally, to gauge theories. We start with Maxwell's mechanical model for electrodynamics, where Maxwell's equations appear as dynamical consistency conditions. We next …
Modern physics, via the standard model with Higgs mechanism and string theory for example, has supplied ether-like models and emergent general relativity scenarios that substantially weaken the usual defense of orthodox relativity and abstract, relational space-time in general. Over a dozen arguments in support of relativism against space-substances are discussed. It is not known whether perceived space-time is fundamental or due to a condensed state or string theoretical membrane. Emergent relativity indicates perhaps a whole tower of more fundamental space-times. Whether space is best descri…
Mach's principle applied to rotation can be correct if one takes into account the rotation of the quantum vacuum together with the Universe. Whether one can detect the rotation of the vacuum or not depends on its properties. If the vacuum is fully relativistic at all scales, Mach's principle should work and one cannot distinguish the rotation: in the rotating Universe+vacuum, the co-rotating bucket will have a flat surface (not concave). However, if there are "quantum gravity" effects which violate Lorentz invariance at high energy, then the rotation will become observable. This is demonstrate…
We consider a massive complex scalar field with contact interactions with a source and show that, upon Bose-Einstein condensation, there is an emergent long-range interaction between sources. This interaction becomes long-range in the limit of vanishing self-interaction between Bose-Einstein constituents. More generally, the range is given by $\ell^{-1}\propto \sqrt{λn/m}$, with $λ$ being the 2-body self-interaction coupling constant, $n$ the particle number density in the condensate, and $m$ the mass of the condensed particles. Naively this may sound surprising since in $λ\rightarrow 0$ limit…
We examine how to construct a spatial manifold and its geometry from the entanglement structure of an abstract quantum state in Hilbert space. Given a decomposition of Hilbert space $\mathcal{H}$ into a tensor product of factors, we consider a class of "redundancy-constrained states" in $\mathcal{H}$ that generalize the area-law behavior for entanglement entropy usually found in condensed-matter systems with gapped local Hamiltonians. Using mutual information to define a distance measure on the graph, we employ classical multidimensional scaling to extract the best-fit spatial dimensionality o…
