Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Physics
Self-Completeness And Spontaneous Dimensional Reduction, Jonas R. Mureika, Piero Nicolini
Self-Completeness And Spontaneous Dimensional Reduction, Jonas R. Mureika, Piero Nicolini
Physics Faculty Works
A viable quantum theory of gravity is one of the biggest challenges physicists are facing. We discuss the confluence of two highly expected features which might be instrumental in the quest of a finite and renormalizable quantum gravity —spontaneous dimensional reduction and self-completeness. The former suggests the spacetime background at the Planck scale may be effectively two-dimensional, while the latter implies a condition of maximal compression of matter by the formation of an event horizon for Planckian scattering. We generalize such a result to an arbitrary number of dimensions, and show that gravity in higher than four dimensions remains self-complete, …
Conformal Gravity And The Alcubierre Warp Drive Metric, Gabriele U. Varieschi, Zily Burstein
Conformal Gravity And The Alcubierre Warp Drive Metric, Gabriele U. Varieschi, Zily Burstein
Physics Faculty Works
We present an analysis of the classic Alcubierre metric based on conformal gravity, rather than standard general relativity. The main characteristics of the resulting warp drive remain the same as in the original study by Alcubierre, that is, effective superluminal motion is a viable outcome of the metric. We show that for particular choices of the shaping function, the Alcubierre metric in the context of conformal gravity does not violate the weak energy condition, as was the case of the original solution. In particular, the resulting warp drive does not require the use of exotic matter. Therefore, if conformal gravity …
Self-Completeness And The Generalized Uncertainty Principle, Maximiliano Isi, Jonas Mureika, Piero Nicolini
Self-Completeness And The Generalized Uncertainty Principle, Maximiliano Isi, Jonas Mureika, Piero Nicolini
Physics Faculty Works
The generalized uncertainty principle discloses a self-complete characteristic of gravity, namely the possibility of masking any curvature singularity behind an event horizon as a result of matter compression at the Planck scale. In this paper we extend the above reasoning in order to overcome some current limitations to the framework, including the absence of a consistent metric describing such Planck-scale black holes. We implement a minimum-size black hole in terms of the extremal configuration of a neutral non-rotating metric, which we derived by mimicking the effects of the generalized uncertainty principle via a short scale modified version of Einstein gravity. …