Relativistic extended uncertainty principle from spacetime curvature

Abstract

The investigations presented in this study are directed at relativistic modifications of the uncertainty relation derived from the curvature of the background spacetime. These findings generalize previous work that is recovered in the nonrelativistic limit. Applying the $3+1$ splitting in accordance with the ADM formalism, we find the relativistic physical momentum operator and compute its standard deviation for wave functions confined to a geodesic ball on a spacelike hypersurface. Its radius can then be understood as a measure of position uncertainty. Under the assumption of small position uncertainties in comparison to background curvature length scales, we obtain the corresponding corrections to the uncertainty relation in flat space. Those depend on the Ricci scalar of the effective spatial metric, the particle is moving on, and, if there are nonvanishing time-space components of the spacetime metric, there are gradients of the shift vector and the lapse function. Interestingly, this result is applicable not only to massive but also to massless particles. Over all, this is not a covariant, yet a consistently general relativistic approach. We further speculate on a possible covariant extension.