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Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 221301 (2008) [4 pages]

Universality of Quantum Gravity Corrections

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Saurya Das*
Department of Physics, University of Lethbridge, 4401 University Drive, Lethbridge, Alberta-T1K 3M4, Canada

Elias C. Vagenas
Research Center for Astronomy & Applied Mathematics, Academy of Athens, Soranou Efessiou 4, GR-11527, Athens, Greece

Received 21 May 2008; published 25 November 2008

We show that the existence of a minimum measurable length and the related generalized uncertainty principle (GUP), predicted by theories of quantum gravity, influence all quantum Hamiltonians. Thus, they predict quantum gravity corrections to various quantum phenomena. We compute such corrections to the Lamb shift, the Landau levels, and the tunneling current in a scanning tunneling microscope. We show that these corrections can be interpreted in two ways: (a) either that they are exceedingly small, beyond the reach of current experiments, or (b) that they predict upper bounds on the quantum gravity parameter in the GUP, compatible with experiments at the electroweak scale. Thus, more accurate measurements in the future should either be able to test these predictions, or further tighten the above bounds and predict an intermediate length scale between the electroweak and the Planck scale.

© 2008 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.221301
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.221301
PACS:
04.60.Bc, 04.80.Cc

*saurya.das@uleth.ca

evagenas@academyofathens.gr

See Also

Comment: M. M. Ettefaghi and S. M. Fazeli, Comment on “Universality of Quantum Gravity Corrections”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 119001 (2010).