2010/09/06 by Steven Carlip, Carlip, Steven · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #gr-qc #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1009.1136
14 pages, two eps figures; to appear in Foundations of Space and Time, edited by George Ellis, Jeff Murugan, Amanda Weltman (Cambridge University Press)
arxiv created 2010/09/06 · arxiv updated 2010/09/07
Several lines of evidence hint that quantum gravity at very small distances may be effectively two-dimensional. I summarize the evidence for such ``spontaneous dimensional reduction,'' and suggest an additional argument coming from the strong-coupling limit of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. If this description proves to be correct, it suggests a fascinating relationship between small-scale quantum spacetime and the behavior of cosmologies near an asymptotically silent singularity.