corner
corner

Phys. Rev. D 73, 104021 (2006) [10 pages]

General solution for classical sequential growth dynamics of causal sets

Download: PDF (161 kB) Buy this article Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

Madhavan Varadarajan1,* and David Rideout2,†
1Raman Research Institute, Bangalore 560 080, India
2Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom

Received 2 June 2005; published 16 May 2006

A classical precursor to a full quantum dynamics for causal sets has been formulated in terms of a stochastic sequential growth process in which the elements of the causal set arise in a sort of accretion process. The transition probabilities of the Markov growth process satisfy certain physical requirements of causality and general covariance, and the generic solution with all transition probabilities nonzero has been found. Here we remove the assumption of nonzero probabilities, define a reasonable extension of the physical requirements to cover the case of vanishing probabilities, and find the completely general solution to these physical conditions. The resulting family of growth processes has an interesting structure reminiscent of an “infinite tower of turtles” cosmology.

© 2006 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevD.73.104021
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevD.73.104021
PACS:
04.60.Nc, 02.50.Ga, 04.20.Gz, 04.60.-m

*Electronic address: madhavan@rri.res.in

Electronic address: d.rideout@imperial.ac.uk.