Emergent time, cosmological constant and boundary dimension at infinity in combinatorial quantum gravity

Abstract

Combinatorial quantum gravity is governed by a discrete Einstein-Hilbert action formulated on an ensemble of random graphs. There is strong evidence for a second-order quantum phase transition separating a random phase at strong coupling from an ordered, geometric phase at weak coupling. Here we derive the picture of space-time that emerges in the geometric phase, given such a continuous phase transition. In the geometric phase, ground-state graphs are discretizations of Riemannian, negative-curvature Cartan-Hadamard manifolds. On such manifolds, diffusion is ballistic. Asymptotically, diffusion time is soldered with a manifold coordinate and, consequently, the probability distribution is governed by the wave equation on the corresponding Lorentzian manifold of positive curvature, de Sitter space-time. With this asymptotic Lorentzian picture, the original negative curvature of the Riemannian manifold turns into a positive cosmological constant. The Lorentzian picture, however, is valid only asymptotically and cannot be extrapolated back in coordinate time. Before a certain epoch, coordinate time looses its meaning and the universe is a negative-curvature Riemannian “shuttlecock” with ballistic diffusion, thereby avoiding a big bang singularity. The emerging coordinate time leads to a de Sitter version of the holographic principle relating the bulk isometries with boundary conformal transformations. While the topological boundary dimension is (D − 1), the so-called “dimension at infinity” of negative curvature manifolds, i.e. the large-scale spectral dimension seen by diffusion processes with no spectral gap, those that can probe the geometry at infinity, is always three.