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How Low Can Vacuum Energy Go When Your Fields Are Finite-Dimensional?

Cao, ChunJun and Chatwin-Davies, Aidan and Singh, Ashmeet (2019) How Low Can Vacuum Energy Go When Your Fields Are Finite-Dimensional? International Journal of Modern Physics D, 28 (14). Art. No. 1944006. ISSN 0218-2718. doi:10.1142/S0218271819440061. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20190709-152651012

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Abstract

According to the holographic bound, there is only a finite density of degrees of freedom in space when gravity is taken into account. Conventional quantum field theory does not conform to this bound, since in this framework, infinitely many degrees of freedom may be localized to any given region of space. In this paper, we explore the viewpoint that quantum field theory may emerge from an underlying theory that is locally finite-dimensional, and we construct a locally finite-dimensional version of a Klein–Gordon scalar field using generalized Clifford algebras. Demanding that the finite-dimensional field operators obey a suitable version of the canonical commutation relations makes this construction essentially unique. We then find that enforcing local finite dimensionality in a holographically consistent way leads to a huge suppression of the quantum contribution to vacuum energy, to the point that the theoretical prediction becomes plausibly consistent with observations.


Item Type:Article
Related URLs:
URLURL TypeDescription
https://dx.doi.org/10.1142/S0218271819440061DOIArticle
https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.11199arXivDiscussion Paper
ORCID:
AuthorORCID
Cao, ChunJun0000-0002-5761-5474
Chatwin-Davies, Aidan0000-0003-1406-9271
Singh, Ashmeet0000-0002-4404-1416
Additional Information:© 2019 World Scientific Publishing Company. Received 12 May 2019; Accepted 10 June 2019; Published 11 July 2019. This essay received an Honorable Mention in the 2019 Essay Competition of the Gravity Research Foundation. We would like to thank Sean Carroll and Grant Remmen for helpful discussions. C. C. acknowledges the support by the U.S. Department of Defense and NIST through the Hartree Postdoctoral Fellowship at QuICS. A. C.-D. is currently supported in part by the KU Leuven C1 Grant ZKD1118 C16/16/005, the National Science Foundation of Belgium (FWO) Grant G.001.12 Odysseus, and by the European Research Council Grant No. ERC-2013-CoG 616732 HoloQosmos. A. S. is funded in part by the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics at Caltech, by DOE Grant DE-SC0011632, and by the Foundational Questions Institute.
Group:Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics
Funders:
Funding AgencyGrant Number
Department of DefenseUNSPECIFIED
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)UNSPECIFIED
Katholieke Universiteit LeuvenZKD1118 C16/16/005
Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (FWO)G.001.12
European Research Council (ERC)616732
Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics, CaltechUNSPECIFIED
Department of Energy (DOE)DE-SC0011632
Foundational Questions Institute (FQXI)UNSPECIFIED
Subject Keywords:Quantum gravity; Bekenstein bound; holography; cosmological constant
Other Numbering System:
Other Numbering System NameOther Numbering System ID
CALT-TH2019-017
Issue or Number:14
DOI:10.1142/S0218271819440061
Record Number:CaltechAUTHORS:20190709-152651012
Persistent URL:https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20190709-152651012
Official Citation:How low can vacuum energy go when your fields are finite-dimensional? ChunJun Cao, Aidan Chatwin-Davies and Ashmeet Singh. International Journal of Modern Physics D 2019 28:14; doi: 10.1142/S0218271819440061
Usage Policy:No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided.
ID Code:97013
Collection:CaltechAUTHORS
Deposited By: Joy Painter
Deposited On:09 Jul 2019 22:38
Last Modified:16 Nov 2021 17:25

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