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arXiv:1611.02269hep-th

Emergent Gravity and the Dark Universe

Erik P. Verlinde

Abstract

Recent theoretical progress indicates that spacetime and gravity emerge together from the entanglement structure of an underlying microscopic theory. These ideas are best understood in Anti-de Sitter space, where they rely on the area law for entanglement entropy. The extension to de Sitter space requires taking into account the entropy and temperature associated with the cosmological horizon. Using insights from string theory, black hole physics and quantum information theory we argue that the positive dark energy leads to a thermal volume law contribution to the entropy that overtakes the area law precisely at the cosmological horizon. Due to the competition between area and volume law entanglement the microscopic de Sitter states do not thermalise at sub-Hubble scales: they exhibit memory effects in the form of an entropy displacement caused by matter. The emergent laws of gravity contain an additional `dark' gravitational force describing the `elastic' response due to the entropy displacement. We derive an estimate of the strength of this extra force in terms of the baryonic mass, Newton's constant and the Hubble acceleration scale a_0 =cH_0, and provide evidence for the fact that this additional `dark gravity~force' explains the observed phenomena in galaxies and clusters currently attributed to dark matter.

arXiv comments
5 figures
Journal reference
SciPost Phys. 2, 016 (2017)
DOI
doi:10.21468/SciPostPhys.2.3.016
Subjects
hep-thHigh Energy Physics, Theory gr-qcGeneral Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

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Linked by 8 identifiable commenters in 9 comments across 6 threads, from Nov 2016 to Mar 2024. Found in 2 HN submissions from Nov 2016 to Nov 2016. Open submission discussions.

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Discussed in comments6 threads

    • I wonder how this relates to Erik Verlinde’s entropic gravity? https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.02269 It seems like this theory is proposing some entropic term on top of classical general relativity whereas Verlinde came up with a completely entropic theory of gravity. They both claim…

      fallingfrogView on HNParent context

  1. Free Will 1 comment
    • Speaking of Bell's inequality, according to Erik Verlinde's theory on emergent gravity, gravity is an emergent force from the supersymmetry relationship of fundamental particles across the entirety of space and time. Each particle was encoded with a quantum memory state before a…

      caublestoneView on HNParent context

    • 'Kills off dark matter" is probably overstating the case, but I love this theory because it ties together a lot of big ideas. Verlinde's paper is here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.02269

      empath75View on HNParent context

    • From the discussion section of Verlinde's paper[1]: > We have shown that the emergent laws of gravity, when one takes into account the volume law contribution to the entropy, start to deviate from the familiar gravitational laws precisely in those situations where the…

      fjarlqView on HNParent context

    • Huh? The topic of the newscientist article is https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.03034 (it links to the PDF right at the bottom!) and in the preprint's references section is "Verlinde, E. P., 2016, preprint, (arXiv:1611.02269)", which is surely the "Verlinde's theory of Emergent…

      raattgiftView on HNParent context

    • > Huh? The topic of the newscientist article is https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.03034 (it links to the PDF right at the bottom!) and in the preprint's references section is "Verlinde, E. P., 2016, preprint, (arXiv:1611.02269)", which is surely the "Verlinde's theory of Emergent…

      jessriedelView on HNParent context

    • Verlinde's paper [ https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.02269 ] is the wrong place to be looking for an argument against dark matter. It starts with simply accepting that dark energy is part of the unremovable background of spacetime (in particular, his paper considers a de Sitter vacuum…

      raattgiftView on HNParent context

    • I'm not rejecting his theory because of pride or blindness. I'm rejecting it because I evaluated it with my brain and determined it to be bad. I'm saying that it is possible to 'know for sure' in some cases, insofar as my brain is working correctly. This is 2+2=5 stuff. I'm as…

      ajkjkView on HNParent context

    • According to Verlinde, there is no dark matter. Tell me how he's wrong point-by-point. Just because gravity is emergent doesn't mean it still cannot have effects similar to what's been perhaps wrongly attributed to dark matter. You can't just say "Bullet Cluster" and "Dragonfly…

      kleigenfreudeView on HNParent context

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