PIRSA:14050130

Projective Statistics in Quantum Gravity

Sorkin, R. (2014). Projective Statistics in Quantum Gravity. Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/14050130

Sorkin, Rafael. Projective Statistics in Quantum Gravity. Perimeter Institute, May. 22, 2014, https://pirsa.org/14050130 

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:14050130,
            doi = {10.48660/14050130},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/14050130},
            author = {Sorkin, Rafael},
            keywords = {},
            language = {en},
            title = { Projective Statistics in Quantum Gravity},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2014},
            month = {may},
            note = {PIRSA:14050130 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }

Rafael Sorkin Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

Talk numberPIRSA:14050130
DOI10.48660/14050130
Collection
Talk Type Conference

Abstract

To the extent that spacetime remains a manifold M on small scales, excitations of the spatial topology can function as particles called topological geons. In a first quantized theory of topological geons (aka continuum quantum gravity without topology change), different irreducible unitary representations of the mapping-class group G of M, yield different superselection sectors of the theory. In some of these sectors the geons behave as fermions, even though gravitons themselves are of course bosons. A still more exotic possibility is "projective statistics", where the operators that permute identical geons only preserve group multiplication up to a phase-factor that cannot be eliminated. (Such a representation must be nonabelian.) I will describe a simple example of this phenomenon with four RP^3 geons.