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Optics, Loss and Gravity

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Adjei_Eugene.pdf (684.9 KB)

Date

2021-01-13

Authors

Adjei, Eugene

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University of Waterloo

Abstract

We look at some ideas that can be found from making connections among optics, non-Hermitian dynamics and gravity. Using nonlinear optics, we demonstrate how loss can be used to make brighter sources of thermal light. Also, we simulate accelerating Unruh-DeWitt detectors in 1+1 spacetime using a nonlinear-optical setup engineered to have variable dispersion. In our last connection with gravity, we make a connection between a dynamic spacetime metric from linearized gravity and a spacetime-dependent refractive index from a linear-optical setup. From these connections with gravity, we argue that spacetime might be emergent, and that one should not quantize the metric to find a quantum gravity theory. Instead, we propose that gravity might have a gauge theory description and that the problem of quantizing gravity is equivalent to that of quantizing a gauge field. A gauge theory of gravity will make it possible to include this interaction into the Standard Model, and this inclusion may have implications for physics beyond the Standard Model.

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Keywords

Gravitational refractive index, Simulation of Unruh-DeWitt detectors, Non-Hermitian optics

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URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10012/16648

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Theses
Physics and Astronomy