Emergent spacetime in condensed matter analogues of general relativity - a podcast by MCMP Team

Karen Crowther (Sydney) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (13 November, 2013) titled "Emergent spacetime in condensed matter analogues of general relativity". Abstract: It has been claimed, based on a few different lines of reasoning, that the notion of spacetime will not appear in a quantum theory of gravity. If this is the case, then spacetime is an emergent concept. Analogue models of general relativity based in condensed matter systems present us with concrete examples of emergent spacetime, and could potentially help us understand the nature of emergent spacetime in the context of quantum gravity. These models present a curved spacetime metric that is described using an effective field theory. In this talk, I explore the conception of emergence that is relevant to analogue spacetime in the condensed matter models. This is a conception of emergence that also applies more generally to other effective field theories, and, as I argue, one that is best understood without appeal to the idea of reduction. I finish by briefly mentioning some potential implications for quantum gravity.

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