Emergence of Space-Time on the Planck Scale within the Scheme of Dynamical Cellular Networks and Random Graphs

We describe the application of methods from the study of discrete dynanmical systems to the problem of the continuum limit of evolving spin networks. These have been found to describe the small scale structure of quantum general relativity and extensions of them have been conjectured to give background independent formulations of string theory. We explain why the the usual equilibrium critical phenomena may not be relevant for the problem of the continuum limit of such theori...

Whether or not space-time is fundamentally discrete is of central importance for the development of the theory of quantum gravity. If the fundamental description of space-time is discrete, typically represented in terms of a graph or network, then the apparent smoothness of geometry on large scales should be imperfect -- it should have defects. Here, we review a model for space-time defects and summarize the constraints on the prevalence of these defects that can be derived f...

Recently I proposed a simple dynamical network model for discrete space-time which self-organizes as a graph with Hausdorff dimension d_H=4. The model has a geometric quantum phase transition with disorder parameter (d_H-d_s) where d_s is the spectral dimension of the dynamical graph. Self-organization in this network model is based on a competition between a ferromagnetic Ising model for vertices and an antiferromagnetic Ising model for edges. In this paper I solve a toy ver...

A cellular automata approach using a Directed Cyclic Graph is used to model interrelationships of fluctuating time, state and space. This model predicts phenomena including a constant and maximum speed at which any moving entity can travel, time dilation effects in accordance with special relativity, calculation for the Doppler effect, propagation in three spatial dimensions, an explanation for the non-local feature of collapse and a speculation on the origin of gravitation. ...

We consider a formal discretisation of Euclidean quantum gravity defined by a statistical model of random $3$-regular graphs and making using of the Ollivier curvature, a coarse analogue of the Ricci curvature. Numerical analysis shows that the Hausdorff and spectral dimensions of the model approach $1$ in the joint classical-thermodynamic limit and we argue that the scaling limit of the model is the circle of radius $r$, $S^1_r$. Given mild kinematic constraints, these claim...

We introduce a novel approach to description of networks/graphs. It is based on an analogue physical model which is dynamically evolved. This evolution depends on the connectivity matrix and readily brings out many qualitative features of the graph.

We consider systems that are well modelled as a networks that evolve in time, which we call {\it Moving Neighborhood Networks}. These models are relevant in studying cooperative behavior of swarms and other phenomena where emergent interactions arise from ad hoc networks. In a natural way, the time-averaged degree distribution gives rise to a scale-free network. Simulations show that although the network may have many noncommunicating components, the time-averaged communicati...

Random graphs are a central element of the study of complex dynamical networks such as the internet, the brain, or socioeconomic phenomena. New methods to generate random graphs can spawn new applications and give insights into more established techniques. We propose two variations of a model to grow random graphs and trees, based on continuous-time quantum walks on the graphs. After a random characteristic time, the position of the walker(s) is measured and new nodes are att...

In this letter we briefly investigate the mathematical structure of space-time in the framework of discretization. It is shown that the discreteness of space-time may result in a new mechanical system which differ from the usual quantum mechanics (QM).

Although random cell complexes occur throughout the physical sciences, there does not appear to be a standard way to quantify their statistical similarities and differences. The various proposals in the literature are usually motivated by the analysis of particular physical systems and do not necessarily apply to general situations. The central concepts in this paper---the swatch and the cloth---provide a description of the local topology of a cell complex that is general (an...