Stress Tensor Fluctuations and Passive Quantum Gravity

The quantum fluctuations of the stress tensor of a quantum field are discussed, as are the resulting space-time metric fluctuations. Passive quantum gravity is an approximation in which gravity is not directly quantized, but fluctuations of the space-time geometry are driven by stress tensor fluctuations. We discuss a decomposition of the stress tensor correlation function into three parts, and consider the physical implications of each part. The operational significance of metric fluctuations and the possible limits of validity of semiclassical gravity are discussed.     

Stochastic Spacetime and Brownian Motion of Test Particles

The operational meaning of spacetime fluctuations is discussed. Classical spacetime geometry can be viewed as encoding the relations between the motions of test particles in the geometry. By analogy, quantum fluctuations of spacetime geometry can be interpreted in terms of the fluctuations of these motions. Thus, one can give meaning to spacetime fluctuations in terms of observables which describe the Brownian motion of test particles. We will first discuss some electromagnetic analogies, where quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field induce Brownian motion of test particles. We next discuss several explicit examples of Brownian motion caused by a fluctuating gravitational field. These examples include lightcone fluctuations, variations in the flight times of photons through the fluctuating geometry, and fluctuations in the expansion parameter given by a Langevin version of the Raychaudhuri equation. The fluctuations in this parameter lead to variations in the luminosity of sources. Other phenomena that can be linked to spacetime fluctuations are spectral line broadening and angular blurring of distant sources.     

The Classical Singularity Theorems and Their Quantum Loopholes

The singularity theorems of classical general relativity are briefly reviewed. The extent to which their conclusions might still apply when quantum theory is taken into account is discussed. There are two distinct quantum loopholes: quantum violation of the classical energy conditions, and the presence of quantum fluctuations of the spacetime geometry. The possible significance of each is discussed.     

Quantum conformal fluctuations and stationary states

Conformal fluctuations serve as a powerful tool to study the nature of quantum gravity. They lead, in a natural fashion, to the concept of stationary states for the quantum geometry. We attempt to incorporate the effect of conformal fluctuations into the background metric and matter. A modified set of equations, including the effect of conformal fluctuations, is presented and the solutions are discussed. It is shown that matter-free vacuum is unstable to conformal fluctuations. A scenario for creation of matter is indicated.     

Spacelike Fluctuations of the Stress Tensor for de Sitter Vacuum

The two-point function characterizing the stresstensor fluctuations of a massless, minimally coupledfield for an invariant vacuum state in de Sitterspacetime is discussed. This two-point function is explicitly computed for spacelike-separatedpoints which are geodesically connected. We show thatthese fluctuations are as important as the expectationvalue of the stress tensor itself. These quantum field fluctuations will induce fluctuations inthe geometry of de Sitter spacetime. This paper is afirst step toward the computation of such metricfluctuations, which may be of interest for large-scale structure formation in cosmology. The relevanceof our results in this context is brieflydiscussed.     

Stress Tensor Fluctuations and Stochastic Spacetimes

The physics of the quantum stress tensor operator is discussed. Although theproblem of defining the expectation values of this operator is reasonably wellunderstood, the fluctuations around the mean value are not so well understood.It is shown that the stress tensor correlation function can be decomposed intothree parts, one of which is finite and state dependent, one which is infinite inthe coincidence limit but state independent, and a cross term which is both statedependent and infinite in the coincidence limit. Possible physical interpretationsof each part are discussed. The fluctuations of the stress tensor in turn inducefluctuations of the spacetime geometry. The terms in the correlation functionwhich are singular in the coincidence limit seem to produce drastic fluctuationsof the geometry, leading to a stochastic spacetime. Whether these fluctuationsare observable is an unanswered question.     

Quantum theory of fields and origin of gravity

The unification of the quantum theory of fields and general relativity is supposed possible on the basis of Sakharov's hypothesis that gravity results from variations in vacuum fluctuations. It is shown that under very general conditions this hypothesis leads to Riemannian geometry of the world-lines of free particle motion. The origin of causal spacetime relations is discussed as the problem complementary to that of the source of geometry. This involves an interpretation of the EPR experiment and supports the idea that spacetime relations in microphysics result from adjusting quantum processes to the causality of macroscopic participators.     

Geometric phase via adiabatic manipulations of the environment

It has been shown that geometric phases may be generated in a quantum system subject to noise by adiabatic manipulations of the fluctuating fields, e.g., by variation of the system-environment coupling. For a two-state quantum system, this phase is expressed in terms of the geometry of the path, traversed by the slowly varying direction and amplitude of the fluctuations. The origin of this phase and the possibilities of separating it from the known environment-induced modification of the Berry phase are discussed. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

Quantum fluctuations near the classical space-time singularity

The method of path integration is used to study the effects of quantum fluctuations in the space-time geometry near the classical singularity of general relativity. It is shown that in certain special cases explicit Feynman propagators can be constructed which enable us to evaluate these fluctuationsquantitatively. The cases discussed are (i) the gravitational collapse of a uniform dust ball, (ii) the Friedmann cosmologies, (iii) the axisymmetric Bianchi type I cosmological model, and (iv) the general anisotropic Bianchi type I cosmological model. In all cases discussed here the quantum uncertainty grows to infinity as the classical space-time singularity is approached. In this wider regime of quantum gravitation nonsingular solutions can occur with finite probabilities.     

Quantum conformal fluctuations near the classical space-time singularity

This paper investigates the behavior of conformal fluctuations of space-time geometry that are admissible under the quantized version of Einstein's general relativity. The approach to quantum gravity is via path integrals. It is shown that considerable simplification results when only the conformal degrees of freedom are considered under this scheme, so much so that it is possible to write down a formal kernel in the most general case where the space-time contains arbitrary distributions of particles with no other interaction except gravity. The behavior of this kernel near the classical space-time singularity then shows that quantum fluctuations inevitably diverge near the singularity. It is shown further that the root cause of this divergence lies in the fact that the Green's function for the conformally invariant scalar wave equation diverges at the singularity. The limitations on the validity of classical general relativity near the space-time singularity are discussed and it is argued that the notion of singularity itself needs to be radically modified once the quantum effects are taken into account.On leave of absence from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay, India     

Even-odd effect in spontaneously coherent bilayer quantum Hall droplets

Using exact diagonalization in the disk geometry we predict a novel even-odd effect in the Coulomb-blockade spectra of vertically coupled double quantum dots under an external magnetic field. The even-odd effect in the tunneling conductance is a direct manifestation of spontaneous interlayer phase coherence, and is similar to the even-odd resonance in the Cooper pair box problem in mesoscopic superconducting grains. Coherent fluctuations in the number of Cooper pairs in superconductors are analogous to the fluctuations in the relative number difference between the two layers in quantum Hall droplets.     

Quantum fluctuations and nonavoidance of the singularity in Bianchi type I cosmology

An effective metric is defined and used for analyzing the quantum fluctuations in a classical geometry. Earlier work showing that quantum (conformal) fluctuations avoid the classical singularity in the case of spherically symmetric collapse is briefly reviewed. It is shown that this result doesnot extend to anisotropic Bianchi type I cosmology. Here the dispersion in the fluctuations increases too slowly to quench the classical singularity. The singularity persists in the space-time described by the effective metric.     

Thermal fluctuations in a hyperscaling-violation background

In this paper, we study the effect of thermal fluctuations on the thermodynamics of a black geometry with hyperscaling violation. These thermal fluctuations in the thermodynamics of this system are produced from quantum corrections of geometry describing this system. We discuss the stability of this system using specific heat and the entire Hessian matrix of the free energy. We will analyze the effects of thermal fluctuations on the stability of this system. We also analyze the effects of thermal fluctuations on the criticality of the hyperscaling-violation background.     

Ultrafast spin dynamics and critical behavior in half-metallic ferromagnet: Sr2FeMoO6

We propose a measurement setup for detecting quantum noise over a wide frequency range using inelastic transitions in a tunable two-level system as a detector. The frequency-resolving detector consists of a double quantum dot which is capacitively coupled to the leads of a nearby mesoscopic conductor. The inelastic current through the double quantum dot is calculated in response to equilibrium and nonequilibrium current fluctuations in the nearby conductor, including zero-point fluctuations at very low temperatures. As a specific example, the fluctuations across a quantum point contact are discussed.     

The irreversible thermodynamics of black holes

The action of quantum fluctuations of the gravitational field may be regarded as the origin of the dissipative processes associated with Hawking radiation. In this picture the black hole possesses internal coherence by virtue of the localization of its mass. The cumulative effect of the quantum fluctuations in the geometry is that this coherence is corrupted and the mass is sapped away.This essay was awarded the fourth prize for 1977 by the Gravity Research Foundation.     

Effects of anisotropy on quantum fluctuation of a three-layer system with mutisublattice

The quantum fluctuations of a three-layer Heisenberg model with six sublattices are studied by the retarded Green’s function method and the spin-wave theory.The effects of anisotropy on the quantum fluctuations at zero temperature are discussed.The results show that the interlayer anisotropy plays an important role in balancing the quantum competitions.     

Experimental realization of a quantum spin pump

We demonstrate the operation of a quantum spin pump based on cyclic radio-frequency excitation of a GaAs quantum dot, including the ability to pump pure spin without pumping charge. The device takes advantage of bidirectional mesoscopic fluctuations of pumped current, made spin dependent by the application of an in-plane Zeeman field. Spin currents are measured by placing the pump in a focusing geometry with a spin-selective collector.     

Correlation effects in light sources with high quantum efficiency

The noise properties of an LED with high quantum efficiency are investigated. Light with sub-Poissonian photon statistics is generated by driving the LED with a high impedance, well regulated current source. It is shown that it is necessary to distinguish between the measured total quantum efficiency and the optical quantum efficiency. In addition, the correlation between the fluctuations in the driving current and the fluctuations in the photocurrent is demonstrated, allowing a suppression of the shot noise after the measurement. The properties of this alternative noise reduction technique are discussed.     

Coherent optical manipulations of the fundamental state in a single quantum dot

By means of an original all-optical experimental technique using microphotoluminescence in a waveguiding geometry, resonant coherent manipulation of quantum states in a single quantum dot becomes possible now. Resonant Rabi oscillation of the fundamental exciton state in a single quantum dot has been realized. We present the results obtained on two different kinds of samples: InAs/GaAs self-assembled quantum dots and naturally formed GaAs quantum dots by thickness fluctuations.     

Entanglement switching via the Kondo effect in triple quantum dots

We consider a triple quantum dot system in a triangular geometry with one of the dots connected to metallic leads. Using Wilson’s numerical renormalization group method, we investigate quantum entanglement and its relation to the thermodynamic and transport properties in the regime where each of the dots is singly occupied on average, but with non-negligible charge fluctuations. It is shown that even in the regime of significant charge fluctuations the formation of the Kondo singlets induces switching between separable and perfectly entangled states. The quantum phase transition between unentangled and entangled states is analyzed quantitatively and the corresponding phase diagram is explained by exactly solvable spin model. In the framework of an effective model we also explain smearing of the entanglement transition for cases when the symmetry of the triple quantum dot system is relaxed.