Quantum-Spacetime Phenomenology

doi:doi:10.12942/lrr-2013-5

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"Quantum-Spacetime Phenomenology"

Giovanni Amelino-Camelia

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	Abstract
1	Introduction and Preliminaries
	1.1	The “Quantum-Gravity problem” as seen by a phenomenologist
	1.2	Quantum spacetime vs quantum black hole and graviton exchange
	1.3	20th century quantum-gravity phenomenology
	1.4	Genuine Planck-scale sensitivity and the dawn of quantum-spacetime phenomenology
	1.5	A simple example of genuine Planck-scale sensitivity
	1.6	Focusing on a neighborhood of the Planck scale
	1.7	Characteristics of the experiments
	1.8	Paradigm change and test theories of not everything
	1.9	Sensitivities rather than limits
	1.10	Other limitations on the scope of this review
	1.11	Schematic outline of this review
2	Quantum-Gravity Theories, Quantum Spacetime, and Candidate Effects
	2.1	Quantum-Gravity Theories and Quantum Spacetime
	2.2	Candidate effects
3	Quantum-Spacetime Phenomenology of UV Corrections to Lorentz Symmetry
	3.1	Some relevant concepts
	3.2	Preliminaries on test theories with modified dispersion relation
	3.3	Photon stability
	3.4	Pair-production threshold anomalies and gamma-ray observations
	3.5	Photopion production threshold anomalies and the cosmic-ray spectrum
	3.6	Pion non-decay threshold and cosmic-ray showers
	3.7	Vacuum Cerenkov and other anomalous processes
	3.8	In-vacuo dispersion for photons
	3.9	Quadratic anomalous in-vacuo dispersion for neutrinos
	3.10	Implications for neutrino oscillations
	3.11	Synchrotron radiation and the Crab Nebula
	3.12	Birefringence and observations of polarized radio galaxies
	3.13	Testing modified dispersion relations in the lab
	3.14	On test theories without energy-dependent modifications of dispersion relations
4	Other Areas of UV Quantum-Spacetime Phenomenology
	4.1	Preliminary remarks on fuzziness
	4.2	Spacetime foam, distance fuzziness and interferometric noise
	4.3	Fuzziness for waves propagating over cosmological distances
	4.4	Planck-scale modifications of CPT symmetry and neutral-meson studies
	4.5	Decoherence studies with kaons and atoms
	4.6	Decoherence and neutrino oscillations
	4.7	Planck-scale violations of the Pauli Exclusion Principle
	4.8	Phenomenology inspired by causal sets
	4.9	Tests of the equivalence principle
5	Infrared Quantum-Spacetime Phenomenology
	5.1	IR quantum-spacetime effects and UV/IR mixing
	5.2	A simple model with soft UV/IR mixing and precision Lamb-shift measurements
	5.3	Soft UV/IR mixing and atom-recoil experiments
	5.4	Opportunities for Bose–Einstein condensates
	5.5	Soft UV/IR mixing and the end point of tritium beta decay
	5.6	Non-Keplerian rotation curves from quantum-gravity effects
	5.7	An aside on gravitational quantum wells
6	Quantum-Spacetime Cosmology
	6.1	Probing the trans-Planckian problem with modified dispersion relations
	6.2	Randomly-fluctuating metrics and the cosmic microwave background
	6.3	Loop quantum cosmology
	6.4	Cosmology with running spectral dimensions
	6.5	Some other quantum-gravity-cosmology proposals
7	Quantum-Spacetime Phenomenology Beyond the Standard Setup
	7.1	A totally different setup with large extra dimensions
	7.2	The example of hard UV/IR mixing
	7.3	The possible challenge of not-so-subleading higher-order terms
8	Closing Remarks
	References
	Footnotes
	Figures

Quantum-Spacetime Phenomenology

Giovanni Amelino-Camelia

Abstract

I review the current status of phenomenological programs inspired by quantum-spacetime research. I stress in particular the significance of results establishing that certain data analyses provide sensitivity to effects introduced genuinely at the Planck scale. My main focus is on phenomenological programs that affect the directions taken by studies of quantum-spacetime theories.

Keywords: quantum spacetime, loop quantum gravity, spacetime noncommutativity