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Quanitized Space & Black Hole Formation

  1. Apr 25, 2003 #1
    Hi, I'm an amateur cosmologist/physicist and I was hoping that someone more well-versed in these areas may be able to comment on this idea that I have.

    Assuming space-time is quanitized and the universe is limited to 3 spatial dimensions (as in Loop Quantum Gravity), has any research been done on how the matter comprising a forming black hole may affect the transmission of gravitons within the collapsing star, i.e. as the matter collapses to the point where it is compressed so greatly that their are literally no empty interstices between the component matter, is it possible that what would seem to be an impenetrable layer of matter stacked together in shoulder-to-shoulder Plank discreteness could prevent the transmission of gravitons (and possibly other force-carrying particles) and thus prevent the black hole from collapsing into a singularity?

    Chris Granger
  2. jcsd
  3. Apr 25, 2003 #2


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    Space quantization doesn't just mean some standard sized small modules like some checkerboard lattice. It means the quanta of space will be established by some projection operation - observation, or decoherence, or whatever. The size of the observed quanta will depend on the energy they contain. Just as in ordinary QM the higher energies will be associated with shorter distances, so the quanta in the center of the black hole would get smaller accordingly. Of course the hope is that LQG will eliminate the singularity at the center of a black hole and so they wouldn't have to go to the limit of zero volume.