Path integral duality modified propagators in spacetimes with constant curvature

Journal Article · Sat Aug 15 04:00:00 EDT 2009 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.80.044005· OSTI ID:21322464

Kothawala, Dawood; Padmanabhan, T ^[1]; Sriramkumar, L ^[2]; Shankaranarayanan, S ^[3]

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1. IUCAA, Post Bag 4, Ganeshkhind, Pune 411 007 (India)
2. Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Chhatnag Road, Jhunsi, Allahabad 211 019 (India)
3. Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Mercantile House, Portsmouth P01 2EG (United Kingdom)

The hypothesis of path integral duality provides a prescription to evaluate the propagator of a free, quantum scalar field in a given classical background, taking into account the existence of a fundamental length, say, the Planck length L{sub P} in a locally Lorentz invariant manner. We use this prescription to evaluate the duality modified propagators in spacetimes with constant curvature (exactly in the case of one spacetime, and in the Gaussian approximation for another two), and show that (i) the modified propagators are ultraviolet finite, (ii) the modifications are nonperturbative in L{sub P}, and (iii) L{sub P} seems to behave like a 'zero point length' of spacetime intervals such that <{sigma}{sup 2}(x,x{sup '})>=[{sigma}{sup 2}(x,x{sup '})+O(1)L{sub P}{sup 2}], where {sigma}(x,x{sup '}) is the geodesic distance between the two spacetime points x and x{sup '}, and the angular brackets denote (a suitable) average over the quantum gravitational fluctuations. We briefly discuss the implications of our results.

• OSTI ID: 21322464
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Journal Name: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 80; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
APPROXIMATIONS
DUALITY
FLUCTUATIONS
HYPOTHESIS
LORENTZ INVARIANCE
MODIFICATIONS
PATH INTEGRALS
PROPAGATOR
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY
SCALAR FIELDS
SPACE-TIME
ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION