Black Holes and Quantum Gravity

理论引力物理的研究将包括：短距离物理在黑洞通过霍金过程辐射和在膨胀宇宙中产生粒子中的作用；引力场高导数有效作用的观测极限和理论性质；此类有效作用的黑洞热力学；努力确定黑洞熵的统计起源；通过量子场算符和因果网络的代数建立时空结构的截止模型；这项研究的结果应该有助于更好地理解引力场中粒子产生对未知短距离物理的敏感性，可能对爱因斯坦方程的修正，以及黑洞热力学定律的性质和有效性范围。这项研究还可能导致对物理自由度存在基本的短距离截止的预测，和/或产生有价值的见解，试图用有限的时空连续模型取代时空连续模型。

The research in theoretical gravitational physics will include: The role of short distance physics in black hole radiation via the Hawking process and in particle production in an expanding universe; Observational limits on, and theoretical properties of, higher derivative effective actions for the gravitational field; Black hole thermodynamics for such effective actions; The effort to identify a statistical origin for black hole entropy; Cutoff models for spacetime structure via the algebra of quantum field operators and causal networks; Results of this research should lead to a better understanding of the sensitivity of particle production in gravitational fields to unknown short distance physics, possible corrections to the Einstein equations, and of the nature and range of validity of the laws of black hole thermodynamics. The research may also lead to predictions following from the existence of a fundamental short-distance cutoff on physical degrees of freedom, and/or yield insights valuable in attempts to supplant the continuum model of spacetime by a finitistic one.