Journal
PHYSICS LETTERS B
Volume 678, Issue 5, Pages 497-499Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2009.06.061
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Funding
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
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Various approaches to Quantum Gravity (such as String Theory and Doubly Special Relativity), as well as black hole physics predict a minimum measurable length, or a maximum observable momentum, and related modifications of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to a so-called Generalized Uncertainty Principle (GUP). We propose a GUP consistent with String Theory, Doubly Special Relativity and black hole physics, and show that this modifies all quantum mechanical Hamiltonians. When applied to an elementary particle, it implies that the space which confines it must be quantized. This suggests that space itself is discrete, and that all measurable lengths are quantized in units of a fundamental length (which call be the Planck length). Oil the one hand, this signals the breakdown of the spacetime continuum picture near that scale, and oil the other hand, it can predict all upper bound oil the quantum gravity parameter in the GUP, from current observations. Furthermore, such fundamental discreteness of space may have observable consequences at length scales much larger than the Planck scale. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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