Research in General Relativity and Quantum Gravity

这项研究计划的大部分内容将涉及"因果假说"，它指出时空的深层结构是一个扩展的"家谱"，技术上称为"偏序"。索尔金教授将通过推进基本理论进一步发展这种方法，同时将其应用于宇宙常数等问题，最近的研究表明，宇宙的大部分有效能量密度都是由它决定的。 研究的其余部分将继续研究与黑洞视界的精细结构密切相关的问题，以及当时空拓扑结构在小尺度上改变或偏离平坦时会发生什么的问题。所有这些问题作为量子引力这个更大问题的一部分都很重要，这也是物理学家们如何看待在当前发展状态下物理理论的两大支柱：量子理论和广义相对论的任务。 量子引力理论通常被期望告诉我们最小长度尺度下时空的深层结构，同时帮助回答最大长度尺度下宇宙是如何形成的问题。

The bulk of this research program will concern the "causal sethypothesis", which states that the deep structure of spacetime is thatof an extended "family tree", known technically as a "partial order".Prof. Sorkin will develop this approach further by advancing theunderlying theory, while at the same time applying it to questions likethat of the cosmological constant, which recently has been shown tocontribute the greater part of the effective energy density of theuniverse. The remainder of the research will continue the study ofclosely related questions about the fine structure of black holehorizons and questions concerning what happens when the topology ofspacetime changes or deviates from flatness on small scales. All these questions are important as part of the larger problemof quantum gravity, which is how physicists refer to the task ofunifying the two main pillars of physical theory in its currentstate of development: Quantum Theory and General Relativity. Atheory of quantum gravity is generally expected to tell us aboutthe deep structure of spacetime on the smallest length scalesand, at the same time, to help answer questions about how thecosmos came to be as it is on the largest length scales.