Research in Classical and Quantum Gravity

经典和量子引力研究

• 批准号: 1504541
• 负责人: Gary Horowitz
• 金额: $ 98.69万
• 依托单位: University of California-Santa Barbara
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-06-15 至 2019-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1504541&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Research; Classical; Quantum; Gravity

This project supports research in gravitational physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Many of the deepest problems in theoretical physics revolve around combining Einstein's theory of general relativity with quantum theory. The resulting theory is called "quantum gravity" and is needed to better understand the origin of the universe, the nature of space and time on small scales, and what happens inside black holes. The research supported by this award will use the latest techniques and tools to try to answer some of these fundamental problems. An essential part of this project is the training of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in the knowledge and techniques that are central to understanding and discovery in gravitational physics. Through a range of forums from public lectures, to informing media reporters, the Principal Investigators will disseminate the directions and results of their research to a broad audience. Society at large will benefit by increasing their understanding of science and the world they live in.James Hartle will continue exploring the interface between quantum mechanics and cosmology. He will work on extending the predictions of the no-boundary quantum state of the universe for observations today to increasingly general and detailed situations. He will further develop the generalizations of quantum mechanics that are necessary for cosmology and investigate cosmologically motivated extensions of quantum mechanics. He proposes to continue to refine our understanding of the origin of the quasiclassical realm of every day experience as an emergent feature of our quantum universe. Gary Horowitz will investigate physics near cosmological singularities in holographic theories of quantum gravity. These are theories in which quantum gravitational degrees of freedom are equivalently described by a lower dimensional nongravitational theory. Horowitz will also explore connections between gravity and condensed matter that can arise using a classical limit of holography. This provides a new tool for the study of superconductivity and other phenomena. In addition, Horowitz will investigate aspects of higher dimensional black holes. Don Marolf will explore a variety of issues in classical and quantum gravity related to black holes, thermodynamics, and entropy. One is to extend arguments that black holes are thermodynamic systems to more general situations. Another is to investigate the possibility that the area of more general surfaces in spacetime might also be associated with entropy, and that spacetime itself may exist only due to thermodynamic phenomena. A final part of his work will continue to study implications of a quantum-mechanical phenomenon (the so-called Hawking effect) that causes black holes to slowly evaporate and which may require significant changes in our understanding of fundamental physics. The methods employed for all this work will be primarily analytic, though it will be supplemented with numerical calculations on desktop computers.

该项目支持位于圣巴巴拉的加州大学的引力物理学研究。理论物理学中许多最深刻的问题都围绕着将爱因斯坦的广义相对论与量子理论结合起来。由此产生的理论被称为“量子引力”，需要更好地理解宇宙的起源，小尺度上的空间和时间的性质，以及黑洞内部发生的事情。该奖项支持的研究将使用最新的技术和工具来尝试回答其中一些基本问题。该项目的一个重要组成部分是培训研究生和博士后研究人员掌握理解和发现引力物理学的核心知识和技术。通过从公开讲座到通知媒体记者的一系列论坛，主要研究人员将向广大受众传播他们的研究方向和结果。 整个社会将受益于增加他们对科学和他们生活的世界的理解。詹姆斯哈特尔将继续探索量子力学和宇宙学之间的接口。他将致力于将今天观测的宇宙无边界量子态的预测扩展到越来越普遍和详细的情况。他将进一步发展宇宙学所必需的量子力学的概括，并研究量子力学的宇宙学动机扩展。 他建议继续完善我们对日常经验的准经典领域的起源的理解，作为我们量子宇宙的一个涌现特征。 加里霍洛维茨将研究量子引力全息理论中宇宙学奇点附近的物理学。在这些理论中，量子引力自由度等价地由低维非引力理论描述。霍洛维茨还将探索引力和凝聚态物质之间的联系，这种联系可以通过全息术的经典极限来实现。这为研究超导等现象提供了一种新的工具。此外，霍洛维茨还将研究高维黑洞的各个方面。Don Marolf将探讨与黑洞，热力学和熵相关的经典和量子引力中的各种问题。 一个是将黑洞是热力学系统的论点扩展到更一般的情况。 另一个是研究时空中更一般表面的面积也可能与熵有关的可能性，以及时空本身可能仅由于热力学现象而存在。 他工作的最后一部分将继续研究量子力学现象（所谓的霍金效应）的影响，这种现象导致黑洞缓慢蒸发，这可能需要我们对基础物理学的理解发生重大变化。所有这些工作所采用的方法将主要是分析性的，尽管它将辅之以台式计算机上的数值计算。