We argue that the relativistic Unruh temperature cannot be associated with the bits on the screen, in the form considered by Verlinde. The acceleration $a$ is a scalar quantity (the modulus of the acceleration four vecor) and not a vector. When the mass $m$ approaches the holographic screen, viewed as a stretched horizon, the shift $Δx$ from Verlinde's Eq. (3.15) becomes $c^{2}/a$ and the entropy variation equals $(1/2) k_{B} ΔN$, in accordance with Gao's calculations. Using the Heisenberg Principle we show that the energy on the causal horizon (viewed as a holographic screen) of an inertial observer is proportional to its radius, as for a black hole.
In a recent publication in this journal, Erik Verlinde attempts to show that gravity should be viewed not as a fundamental force, but rather as an emergent thermodynamic phenomenon arising from an unspecified microscopic theory via equipartition and holography. This paper presents a challenge to his reformulation of gravity. A detailed examination of Verlinde's derivation leads to a number of questions that severely weaken the claim that such a theory correctly reproduces Newton's laws or Einstein gravity. In particular, we find that neither Newtonian gravity nor the Einstein equations are uni…
Erik Verlinde's proposal of the emergence of the gravitational force as an entropic force is extended to abelian and non-abelian gauge fields and to matter fields. This suggests a picture with no fundamental forces or forms of matter whatsoever.
Erik Verlinde recently proposed an idea about the thermodynamic origin of gravity. Though this is a beautiful idea which may resolve many long standing problems in the theories of gravity, it also raises many other problems. In this article I will comment on some of the problems of Verlinde's proposal with special emphasis on the thermodynamical origin of the principle of relativity. It is found that there is a large group of hidden symmetries of thermodynamics which contains the Poincare group of the spacetime for which space is emergent. This explains the thermodynamic origin of the principl…
Some comments are given on recently proposed entropic gravity by Verlinde. We focus on the derivation of Newton's law of gravitation. It is shown that consistent classical relations are enough to result in the Newtonian gravity. In our derivation, it is crucial that the entropy is a quarter of the number of states in units of the Boltzmann constant $k_ B$, and the number of states is given by the holographic principle.
The theory of gravity has undergone somewhat of a revolution lately. Gravity is no longer a fundamental force it seems, but rather an effect of holographic entropy. Building on the works by Jacobsson, Padmanabhan and Verlinde we review the concept of Newtonian gravity as an entropic force and discuss a possible general action approach to Verlinde's theory. We also discuss some open problems and future prospects of Verlinde's approach.
In a recent paper, Erik Verlinde has developed the interesting possibility that spacetime and gravity may emerge from the entangled structure of an underlying microscopic theory. In this picture, dark matter arises as a response to the standard model of particle physics from the delocalized degrees of freedom that build up the dark energy component of the Universe. Dark matter physics is then regulated by a characteristic acceleration scale $a_0$, identified with the radius of the (quasi)-de Sitter universe we inhabit. For a point particle matter source, or outside an extended spherically symm…
'Holographic' relations between theories have become an important theme in quantum gravity research. These relations entail that a theory without gravity is equivalent to a gravitational theory with an extra spatial dimension. The idea of holography was first proposed in 1993 by Gerard 't Hooft on the basis of his studies of evaporating black holes. Soon afterwards the holographic 'AdS/CFT' duality was introduced, which since has been intensively studied in the string theory community and beyond. Recently, Erik Verlinde has proposed that even Newton's law of gravitation can be related holograp…
We point out that recent Verlinde's proposal of emergent gravity suffers from some internal inconsistencies. The main idea in this proposal is to preserve general relativity at short scales where numerous tests verified its validity, but modify it on large scales where we meet puzzles raised by observations (in particular dark matter), by using some entropic concepts. We first point out that gravity as a conservative force is very difficult (if possible at all) to portray as an entropic force. We then show that the derivation of the MOND relation using the elastic strain idea is not self-consi…
We apply a recent argument of Verlinde to loop quantum gravity, to conclude that Newton's law of gravity emerges in an appropriate limit and setting. This is possible because the relationship between area and entropy is realized in loop quantum gravity when boundaries are imposed on a quantum spacetime.
In this paper we suggest a connection between quantum mechanics and Verlinde's recently proposed entropic force theory for the laws of Newton. We propose an entropy based on the quantum mechanical probability density distribution. With the assumption that the holographic principle holds we propose that our suggested quantum entropy generalizes the Bekenstein entropy used by Verlinde in his approach. Based on this assumption we suggest that Verlinde's entropic theory of gravity has a quantum mechanical origin. We establish a reformulation of the Newtonian potential for gravity based on this qua…
Verlinde has suggested that the gravity has an entropic origin, and a gravitational system could be regarded as a thermodynamical system. It is well-known that the equipartition law of energy is invalid at very low temperature. Therefore, entropic force should be modified while the temperature of the holographic screen is very low. It is shown that the modified entropic force is proportional to the square of the acceleration, while the temperature of the holographic screen is much lower than the Debye temperature $T_D$. The modified entropic force returns to the Newton's law of gravitation whi…
Following Verlinde's recent work on the origin of gravity and the laws of Newton, we consider further the origin of the starting point of Verlinde's work and Unruh effect. Simple derivations are given for this starting point and Unruh effect with the standard theory about quantum mechanics, special relativity and 'vacuum' background based on the gauge field theory. Our studies give the physical origin of the Planck length. The present work supports further the idea that gravity is not a fundamental force. In the present work, the concept of holographic screen is not absolutely necessary to der…
We propose gravitational microlensing as a way of testing the emergent gravity theory recently proposed by Eric Verlinde~\cite{Verlinde:2016toy}. We consider two limiting cases: the dark mass of maximally anisotropic pressures (Case I) and of isotropic pressures (Case II). Our analysis of perihelion advancement of a planet shows that only Case I yields a viable theory. In this case the metric outside a star of mass $M_*$ can be modeled by that of a point-like global monopole whose mass is $M_*$ and a deficit angle $Δ= \sqrt{(2GH_0M_*)/(3c^3)}$, where $H_0$ is the Hubble rate and $G$ the Newton…
It has been known for some time that there is a deep connection between thermodynamics and gravity, with perhaps the most dramatic implication that the Einstein equations can be viewed as a thermodynamic equation of state. Recently Verlinde has proposed a model for gravity with a simple statistical mechanical interpretation that is applicable in the non-relatvistic regime. After critically analyzing the construction, we present a strong consistency check of the model. Specifically, we consider two well-motivated corrections to the area-entropy relation, the log correction and the volume correc…
We discuss the different bounds on entropy in the context of two-dimensional cosmology. We show that in order to obtain well definite bounds one has to use the scale symmetry of the gravitational theory. We then extend the recently found relation between the Friedmann equation and the Cardy formula to the case of two dimensions. In particular, we find that in two dimensions this relation requires that the central charge c of the conformal field theory is given in terms of the Newton constant G of the gravitational theory by c=6/G.
We follow arguments of Verlinde and Klinkhamer, and construct two models of the microscopic theory of a holographic screen that allow for the thermodynamical derivation of Newton's law, with Newton's constant expressed in terms of a minimal length scale contained in the area spectrum of the microscopic theory. One of the models is loosely related to the quantum structure of surfaces and isolated horizons in loop quantum gravity. Our investigation shows that the conclusions reached by Klinkhamer regarding the new length scale seem to be generic in all their qualitative aspects.
Verlinde (2016) has recently proposed that spacetime and gravity may emerge from an underlying microscopic theory. In a de Sitter spacetime, such emergent gravity (EG) contains an additional gravitational force due to dark energy, which may explain the mass discrepancies observed in galactic systems without the need of dark matter. For a point mass, EG is equivalent to Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND). We show that this equivalence does not hold for finite-size galaxies: there are significant differences between EG and MOND in the inner regions of galaxies. We confront theoretical prediction…
After recalling the basic concepts of gravity as an emergent phenomenon, we analyze the recent derivation of Newton's law in terms of entropic force proposed by Verlinde. By reviewing some points of the procedure, we extend it to the case of a generic quantum gravity entropic correction to get compelling deviations to the Newton's law. More specifically, we study: (1) noncommutative geometry deviations and (2) ungraviton corrections. As a special result in the noncommutative case, we find that the noncommutative character of the manifold would be equivalent to the temperature of a thermodynami…
Verlinde's heuristic argument for the interpretation of the standard Newtonian gravitational force as an entropic force is generalized by the introduction of a minimum temperature (or maximum wave length) for the microscopic degrees of freedom on the holographic screen. With the simplest possible setup, the resulting gravitational acceleration felt by a test mass m from a point mass M at a distance R is found to be of the form of the modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) as suggested by Milgrom. The corresponding MOND-type acceleration constant is proportional to the minimum temperature, which ca…
The entropic gravity scenario recently proposed by Erik Verlinde reproduced the Newton's law of purely classical gravity yet the key assumptions of this approach all have quantum mechanical origins. This is atypical for emergent phenomena in physics, where the underlying, more fundamental physics often reveals itself as corrections to the leading classical behavior. So one naturally wonders: where is hbar hiding in entropic gravity? To address this question, we first revisit the idea of holographic screen as well as entropy and its variation law in order to obtain a self-consistent approach to…
In this letter, we use the Parikh-Wilczek tunneling model of Hawking radiation to illustrate that a reformulation of Verlinde's entropic gravity is needed to derive the Newton's law for a temperature-varying screen, demanded by the conservation of energy. Furthermore, the entropy stored in the holographic screen is shown to be additive and its temperature dependence can be obtained.
In this note I argue that the expression for entropic force, used as a starting point in Verlinde's derivation of Newton's law, can be deduced from first principles if one assumes that that the microscopic theory behind his construction is the topological $\SO(4,1)$ BF theory coupled to particles.
Based on the connection between Tsallis nonextensive statistics and fractional dimensional space, in this work we have introduced, with the aid of Verlinde's formalism, the Newton constant in a fractal space as a function of the nonextensive constant. With this result we have constructed a curve that shows the direct relation between Tsallis nonextensive parameter and the dimension of this fractal space. We have demonstrated precisely that there are ambiguities between the results due to Verlinde's approach and the ones due to fractional calculus formalism. We have shown precisely that these a…
Under natural assumptions on the thermodynamic properties of space and time with the holographic principle we reproduce a MOND-like behaviour of gravity on particular scales of mass and length, where Newtonian gravity requires a modification or extension if no dark matter component is introduced in the description of gravitational phenomena. The result is directly obtained with the assumption that a fundamental constant of nature with dimensions of acceleration needs to be introduced into gravitational interactions. This in turn allows for modifications or extensions of the equipartion law and…
In a recent paper [arXiv:1001.0785], Verlinde has shown that the Newton gravity appears as an entropy force. In this paper we show how gravity appears as entropy force in Einstein's equation of gravitational field in a general spherically symmetric spacetime. We mainly focus on the trapping horizon of the spacetime. We find that when matter fields are absent, the change of entropy associated with the trapping horizon indeed can be identified with an entropy force. When matter fields are present, we see that heat flux of matter fields also leads to the change of entropy. Applying arguments made…
We consider E. Verlinde's proposal that gravity is an entropic force -- we shall call this theory entropic gravity (EG) -- and reanalyze a recent claim that this theory is in contradiction with the observation of the gravitationally-bound ground state of neutrons in the GRANIT experiment. We find that EG does not necessarily contradict the existence of gravitationally-bound quantum states of neutrons in the Earth's gravitational field, since EG is equivalent to Newtonian gravity in this case. However, certain transitions between the gravitationally-bound quantum states of neutrons, in particul…
It is an old idea to realize Einstein's equations as a thermodynamical equation of state. Since then, there has been new conjectures to understand gravity from another point of view. In this way we can accept that the gravitational field is not an underlying one like an emergent force from other approaches based on the knowledge of relativity, quantum and black holes thermodynamics, and different statistical formalisms. One important question concerning this gravity/thermostatistics correspondence is whether the holographic screen could be well defined for a nonrelativistic case of a source ma…
Verlinde's proposal on the entropic origin of gravity is based strongly on the assumption that the equipartition law of energy holds on the holographic screen induced by the mass distribution of the system. However, from the theory of statistical mechanics we know that the equipartition law of energy does not hold in the limit of very low temperature. Inspired by the Debye model for the equipartition law of energy in statistical thermodynamics and adopting the viewpoint that gravitational systems can be regarded as a thermodynamical system, we modify Einstein field equations. We also perform t…
A new conception is proposed in Ref.\cite{Verlinde:2010hp,Padmanabhan:2009kr} that gravity is one kind of entropic force. In this letter, we try to discuss its applications to the modified gravities by using three different corrections to the area law of entropy which are derived from the quantum effects and extra dimensions. According to the assumption of holographic principle, the number of bits $N$ which is related to the equipartition law of energy is modified. Then, the modified law of Newton's gravity and the modified Friedmann equations are obtained by using the new notion. By choosing …
Considerable attention has been focused on Verlinde's recent work, claiming that Newton's gravity is not a fundamental force. In a recent work (arXiv:1012.5858), we give further the logic basis and basic clues to derive the Newton's gravity, inertia law and Einstein's weak equivalence principle. In this work, we show that if the gravity is not a fundamental force, in special case, it could be repulsive when quantum wavepacket effect is considered. This quantum gravity effect leads to several physical effects: (1) It is consistent with the universe with accelerating expansion, if the gravity an…
