A theory of position of massive bodies is proposed that results in an observable quantum behavior of geometry at the Planck scale, $t_P$. Departures from classical world lines in flat spacetime are described by Planckian noncommuting operators for position in different directions, as defined by interactions with null waves. The resulting evolution of position wavefunctions in two dimensions displays a new kind of directionally-coherent quantum noise of transverse position. The amplitude of the effect in physical units is predicted with no parameters, by equating the number of degrees of freedom of position wavefunctions on a 2D spacelike surface with the entropy density of a black hole event horizon of the same area. In a region of size $L$, the effect resembles spatially and directionally coherent random transverse shear deformations on timescale $\approx L/c$ with typical amplitude $\approx \sqrt{ct_PL}$. This quantum-geometrical "holographic noise" in position is not describable as fluctuations of a quantized metric, or as any kind of fluctuation, dispersion or propagation effect in quantum fields. In a Michelson interferometer the effect appears as noise that resembles a random Planckian walk of the beamsplitter for durations up to the light crossing time. Signal spectra and correlation functions in interferometers are derived, and predicted to be comparable with the sensitivities of current and planned experiments. It is proposed that nearly co-located Michelson interferometers of laboratory scale, cross-correlated at high frequency, can test the Planckian noise prediction with current technology.
The effect of Planck scale quantum geometrical effects on measurements with interferometers is estimated with standard physics, and with a variety of proposed extensions. It is shown that effects are negligible in standard field theory with canonically quantized gravity. Statistical noise levels are estimated in a variety of proposals for non-standard metric fluctuations, and these alternatives are constrained using upper bounds on stochastic metric fluctuations from LIGO. Idealized models of several interferometer system architectures are used to predict signal noise spectra in a quantum geom…
Future detectors could be used as a gravitational microscope to probe the horizon structure of merging black holes with gravitational waves. But can this microscope probe the quantum regime? We study this interesting question and find that (i) the error in the distance resolution is exponentially sensitive to errors in the Love number, and (ii) the uncertainty principle of quantum gravity forces a fundamental resolution limit. Thus, although the gravitational microscope can distinguish between black holes and other exotic objects, it is resolution limited well above the Planckian scale.
In this paper I introduce a precise constraint on primordial magnetogenesis, for a generic class of single-field inflationary model followed by small field excursion below the Planck scale. I also establish a connection between the magnetic field at the present epoch and primordial gravity waves ($r$) via non-vanishing CP asymmetry parameter ($ε_{\bf CP}$), which triggers the leptogenesis scenario. Finally, I explore various hidden cosmophenomenological features of theoretical CMB B-mode polarization spectra, which can be treated as a significant probe to put further stringent constraint on lo…
We revisit the issue of ripples in the primordial power spectra caused by trans-Planckian physics, and the potential for their detection by future cosmological probes. We find that for reasonably large values of the first slow-roll parameter epsilon (> 0.001), a positive detection of trans-Planckian ripples can be made even if the amplitude is as low as 10^-4. Data from the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) and the proposed future 21 cm survey with the Fast Fourier Transform Telescope (FFTT) will be particularly useful in this regard. If the scale of inflation is close to its present uppe…
Several quantum-gravity models of compact objects predict microscopic or even Planckian corrections at the horizon scale. We explore the possibility of measuring two model-independent, smoking-gun effects of these corrections in the gravitational waveform of a compact binary, namely the absence of tidal heating and the presence of tidal deformability. For events detectable by the future space-based interferometer LISA, we show that the effect of tidal heating dominates and allows one to constrain putative corrections down to the Planck scale. The measurement of the tidal Love numbers with LISA…
Extra-galactic sources of photons have been used to constrain space-time quantum fluctuations in the Universe. In these proposals, the fundamental "fuzziness" of distance caused by space-time quantum fluctuations has been directly identified with fluctuations in optical paths. Phase-front corrugations deduced from these optical-path fluctuations are then applied to light from extra-galactic point sources, and used to constrain various models of quantum gravity. However, when a photon propagates in three spatial dimensions, it does not follow a specific ray, but rather samples a finite, three-d…
With an energy scale that can be as high as $10^{14}\,{\rm GeV}$, inflation may provide a unique probe of high-energy physics. Both scalar and tensor fluctuations generated during this early accelerated expansion contain crucial information about the particle content of the primordial universe. The advent of ground- and space-based interferometers enables us to probe primordial physics at length-scales much smaller than those corresponding to current CMB constraints. One key prediction of single-field slow-roll inflation is a red-tilted gravitational wave spectrum, currently inaccessible at in…
Atom interferometers (AIs) on earth and in space offer good capabilities for measuring gravitational waves (GWs) in the mid-frequency deciHz band, complementing the sensitivities of the LIGO/Virgo and LISA experiments and enabling probes of possible modifications of the general relativity predictions for GW propagation. We illustrate these capabilities using the projected sensitivities of the AION (terrestrial) and AEDGE (space-based) AI projects, showing that AION could improve the present LIGO/Virgo direct limit on the graviton mass by a factor $\sim 40$ to $\simeq 10^{-24}\,$eV, and AEDGE c…
In this Letter, we propose a new scenario emerging from the conjectured presence of a minimal length $\ell$ in the spacetime fabric, on the one side, and the existence of a new scale invariant, continuous mass spectrum, of un-particles on the other side. We introduce the concept of \textit{un-spectral dimension} $\mathbb{D}_U$ of a $d$-dimensional, euclidean (quantum) spacetime, as the spectral dimension measured by an "un-particle" probe. We find a general expression for the un-spectral dimension $\mathbb{D}_U$ labelling different spacetime phases: a semi-classical phase, where ordinary spect…
Over the last decade a growing number of quantum-gravity researchers has been looking for opportunities for the first ever experimental evidence of a Planck-length quantum property of spacetime. These studies are usually based on the analysis of some candidate indirect implications of spacetime quantization, such as a possible curvature of momentum space. Some recent proposals have raised hope that we might also gain direct experimental access to quantum properties of spacetime, by finding evidence of limitations to the measurability of the center-of-mass coordinates of some macroscopic bodies…
The interferometry-based experimental tests of quantum properties of space-time which the author sketched out in a recent short Letter [Nature 398 (1999) 216] are here discussed in self-contained fashion. Besides providing detailed derivations of the results already announced in the previous Letter, some new results are also derived; in particular, the analysis is extended to a larger class of scenarios for space-time fuzziness and an absolute bound on the measurability of the amplitude of a gravity wave is obtained. It is argued that these studies could be helpful for the search of a theory d…
Many recent works have shown that the angular resolution of ground-based detectors is too poor to characterize the anisotropies of the stochastic gravitational-wave background (SGWB). For this reason, we asked ourselves if a constellation of space-based instruments could be more suitable. We consider the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), a constellation of multiple LISA-like clusters, and the Deci-hertz Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (DECIGO). Specifically, we test whether these detector constellations can probe the anisotropies of the SGWB. For this scope, we considere…
In this letter we investigate the role of regular (curvature singularity-free) black holes in the framework of UV self-complete quantum gravity. The existence of a minimal length, shielding the trans-Planckian regime to any physical probe, is self-consistently included into the black hole probe itself. In this way we obtain to slightly shift the barrier below the Planck Length, with the UV self-complete scenario self-consistently confirmed.
The recently proposed UV self-complete quantum gravity program is a new and very interesting way to envision Planckian/trans-Planckian physics. in this new framework, high energy scattering is dominated by the creation of micro black holes, and it is experimentally impossible to probe distances shorter than the horizon radius. In this letter we present a model which realizes this idea through the creation of self-regular quantum black holes admitting a minimal size extremal configuration. Their radius provides a dynamically generated minimal length acting as a universal short-distance cut-off.…
We propose a method to probe the equation of state of the early universe and its evolution, using the stochastic gravitational wave background from inflation. A small deviation from purely radiation dominated universe ($w= 1/3$) would be clearly imprinted on the gravitational wave spectrum $Ω_{GW}(f)$ due to the nearly scale invariant nature of inflationary generated waves.
We investigate the capability of various configurations of the space interferometer eLISA to probe the late-time background expansion of the universe using gravitational wave standard sirens. We simulate catalogues of standard sirens composed by massive black hole binaries whose gravitational radiation is detectable by eLISA, and which are likely to produce an electromagnetic counterpart observable by future surveys. The main issue for the identification of a counterpart resides in the capability of obtaining an accurate enough sky localisation with eLISA. This seriously challenges the capabil…
3-dimensional gravity coupled to Maxwell (or Klein-Gordon) fields is exactly soluble under the assumption of axi-symmetry. The solution is used to probe several quantum gravity issues. In particular, it is shown that the quantum fluctuations in the geometry are large unless the number and frequency of photons satisfy the inequality $\N(\hbar Gω)^2 << 1$. Thus, even when there is a single photon of Planckian frequency, the quantum uncertainties in the metric are significant. Results hold also for a sector of the 4-dimensional theory (consisting of Einstein Rosen gravitational waves).
