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Higher Operad Combinatorics in Topos QuantumGravity
M. D. SheppeardApril 29, 2008
Classical gravity, whatever its domain of applicability, does not addressthe fact that the matter we know about has quantised gravitational charges,such as rest masses or energy levels for bound systems. A theory capable of deriving all such rest masses, which we assume exists, presumably encom-passes both standard model physics and general relativity in certain limits,and so requires a degree of mathematical sophistication far beyond centuryold continuum techniques, or ad hoc deformations thereof. At the sametime, concepts must be
accessible
to physicists, along with new computa-tional tools.Higher operad combinatorics is an example of such a tool. That is,within the context of certain ideas about quantum gravity, which will beexplained, this mathematics is capable of both (i) reformulating standardmodel techniques and (ii) defining simple quantum mass observables whichhave some contact with empirical reality.Classical gravity is considered to arise roughly in the following manner.Firstly, cosmology is truly quantum and one may choose to abandon a globalontological reality since all observables are to be defined in terms of thegeometry of measurement conditions, from the point of view of differentclasses of constrained observers. The main constraint on an observationis one of
scale
, such as a choice of beam energy for the LHC. Standardmodel physics occupies a low energy tier marked by a fixed value of
, buta whole hierarchy of scales is presumed to exist. As a
formalism
, generalrelativity requires the entire hierarchy of quantum scales, since it exhibitscertain similar features, but
physically
GR may only apply to low redshiftscale differences.In this case dark energy is replaced, most simply, by a variation in thespeed of light and also in
(see Riofrio [9] and Pitkanen [8]), so that finestructure is preserved (please note that Big Bang nucleosynthesis, for in-1
stance, is not an issue in this proposal). Then GR’s domain of applicabilityis limited by its independent fixing of
c
and
. The early universe, from thisvantage point, is characterised by largely classical behaviour (small
) andlarge scale thermal contact due to a divergent
c
. The quantities
c
and
arequantised, leading to a hierarchy of distance scales labeled by ordinals
N
where
q
=
e
2
πiN
will appear as a fundamental deformation parameter. Or-dinary quantum physics corresponds to a fixed
at
N
= 2. A holographicemergent 3-vector time (or background temperature)
T
is identified withan entropy increasing process
dual
to a contraction of space that occursfor high energy observables. Note that this concept of time is
observer de-pendent
and not tied to fixed foliations of a classical reality. Rather, ourestimates of cosmic time arise from the level of quantum complexity, orHegelian consciousness, that we employ in our observations (ie. at a fixed
). Unfortunately,
mass
appears to require operators that span the entire
hierarchy.Here we wish to investigate a new tricategorical [12] regime at
N
=3 by relating special properties of 3-categories to the dimension of space,colour in QCD, 3 stranded braids, and the number of generations in the lowenergy particle spectrum. This appears to be possible only by attributingto the parameter
N
= 3 an extremely fundamental significance, associatedto unknown axioms for higher toposes and
N
-dimensional multicategories.This approach is therefore quite distinct from other topos theoretic ideas forgravity. The proposal contains 3 sections:1.describes the axiomatic nature of higher topos quantum gravity2.outlines the technical core of the proposed research3.notes connections to a broader research program
1 Higher Topos Quantum Gravity
Ordinary geometry is supposed to emerge from a framework which firstdefines observables for a finite range of input criteria, determined by the ab-stract constraints of specific experimental questions. This discrete languagemust transcend the mathematics of
points
in a classical space.A
topos
is the modern generalisation of the concept of space. It has
N
= 2 levels of arrows, namely objects and 1-arrows. The canonical exam-ple of a topos is the category of
sets
, equipped with the two valued Booleanlogic of set union and intersection. Although not necessarily Boolean, all2
spatial toposes involve distributive lattices with lower (empty set) and upper(whole set) bounds. A generalisation of the axioms to the logic of quantummechanics was considered in [11]. Although this work required higher di-mensional categorical structures, it is also an
N
= 2 construction, basicallybecause the two element set subobject classifier [7] is replaced by the
qubit
(concretely
C
2
in the category of complex vector spaces), corresponding totwo outcome experiments such as the observation of electron spin.We will consider
rest mass
as a kind of three outcome experiment. Butto begin with, let us consider multiple experiments constructed from
N
= 2logic. The standard functor
F
:
Set
→
Vect
sends a set
S
to a basis for
F
(
S
). This selection of a
single
measurement basis may be generalised tomulticategories, which allow multiple sources
h h h h h h h P P P P P z z z z z z z
for 1-arrows. Since quantum processes invariably involve either multiple in-puts and/or multiple outputs, we will consider this kind of categorical arrowto be the natural one to use. An
operad
is just a one object multicategorybuilt from such arrows.The set of
n
leaved one level rooted trees labels, in particular, a sequenceof spherical polytopes of dimension
d
=
n
−
3. For 5 leaves one obtains the2-sphere in the form of the Stasheff associahedron:
••
g g g g g g g g g g
•
•••
••
e e e e e
• ••• ••
e e e e e e e e e c c c c c c c c c & & & & & & & & 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 c c c c c c c c c 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 & & & & & & & & & & & 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( (
(1)The vertices of this polytope are labeled by all possible 5-leaved rootedbinary trees, the edges by one edge contractions of such trees and the facesby two edge contractions, which contain only two internal vertices.What is the real physical reason for considering such sets of topologicalspaces? To begin with, we would like to a find an
N
= 2 shadow of the
hierarchy in ordinary quantum theory (namely Feynman calculi) in a form3
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