by
Prof.Laurent Freidel(Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics)
→
Europe/Berlin
Room 2, Building 2a (DESY Hamburg)
Room 2, Building 2a
DESY Hamburg
Description
In this talk I will describe the fundamental tension that forbids us in my view to reconcile gravity with the quantum. I will explain how this tension forces us to profoundly revise the concept of locality and that this can be done by letting go of the hypothesis of Absolute locality.
I will formulate what relaxing this hypothesis means and will describe our attempts to flesh out the concept of relative locality. I will also exemplify what relative locality is into specific examples.
In particular, we will show how these ideas allow us to natural interpret geometrically the T-duality symmetry of string theory. This symmetry will be seen as relativistic change of frame in a modular space, a notion of space that replaces Minkowski for quantum geometry. I will also show how the geometry of relative locality is intimately linked with generalized geometry and the geometry of quantum mechanics via a natural structure on phase space called Born geometry. Finally, and if time permits, I will comment how relative locality can shade a bright new light on the problem of unification.
