Hilbert p-adics, hierarchy of Planck constants, and finite measurement resolution

The hierarchy of Planck constants assigns to the N-fold coverings of the imbedding space points N-dimensional Hilbert spaces. The natural identification of these Hilbert spaces would be as Hilbert spaces assignable to space-time points or with points of partonic 2-surfaces. There is however an objection against this identification.

1. The dimension of the local covering of imbedding space for the hierarchy of Planck constants is constant for a given region of the space-time surface. The dimensions of the Hilbert space assignable to the coordinate values of a given point of the imbedding space are defined by the points themselves. The values of the 8 coordinates define the algebraic Hilbert space dimensions for the factors of an 8-fold Cartesian product, which can be integer, rational, algebraic numbers or even transcendentals and therefore they vary as one moves along space-time surface.

2. This dimension can correspond to the locally constant dimension for the hierarchy of Planck constants only if one brings in finite measurement resolution as a pinary cutoff to the pinary expansion of the coordinate so that one obtains ordinary integer-dimensional Hilbert space. Space-time surface decomposes into regions for which the points have same pinary digits up to p^N in the p-adic case and down to p^-N in the real context. The points for which the cutoff is equal to the point itself would naturally define the ends of braid strands at partonic 2-surfaces at the boundaries of CD:s.

3. At the level of quantum states pinary cutoff means that quantum states have vanishing projections to the direct summands of the Hilbert spaces assigned with pinary digits pⁿ, n>N. For this interpretation the hierarchy of Planck constants would realize physically pinary digit representations for number with pinary cutoff and would relate to the physics of cognition.

One of the basic challenges of quantum TGD is to find an elegant realization for the notion of finite measurement resolution. The notion of resolution involves observer in an essential manner and this suggests that cognition is involved. If p-adic physics is indeed physics of cognition, the natural guess is that p-adic physics should provide the primary realization of this notion.

The simplest realization of finite measurement resolution would be just what one would expect it to be except that this realization is most natural in the p-adic context. One can however define this notion also in real context by using canonical identification to map p-adic geometric objets to real ones.

Does discretization define an analog of homology theory?

Discretization in dimension D in terms of pinary cutoff means division of the manifold to cube-like objects. What suggests itself is homology theory defined by the measurement resolution and by the fluxes assigned to the induced Kähler form.

1. One can introduce the decomposition of n-D sub-manifold of the imbedding space to n-cubes by n-1-planes for which one of the coordinates equals to its pinary cutoff. The construction works in both real and p-adic context. The hyperplanes in turn can be decomposed to n-1-cubes by n-2-planes assuming that an additional coordinate equals to its pinary cutoff. One can continue this decomposition until one obtains only points as those points for which all coordinates are their own pinary cutoffs. In the case of partonic 2-surfaces these points define in a natural manner the ends of braid strands. Braid strands themselves could correspond to the curves for which two coordinates of a light-like 3-surface are their own pinary cutoffs.

2. The analogy of homology theory defined by the decomposition of the space-time surface to cells of various dimensions is suggestive. In the p-adic context the identification of the boundaries of the regions corresponding to given pinary digits is not possible in purely topological sense since p-adic numbers do not allow well-ordering. One could however identify the boundaries sub-manifolds for which some number of coordinates are equal to their pinary cutoffs or as inverse images of real boundaries. This might allow to formulate homology theory to the p-adic context.

3. The construction is especially interesting for the partonic 2-surfaces. There is hierarchy in the sense that a square like region with given first values of pinary digits decompose to p square like regions labelled by the value 0,...,p-1 of the next pinary digit. The lines defining the boundaries of the 2-D square like regions with fixed pinary digits in a given resolution correspond to the situation in which either coordinate equals to its pinary cutoff. These lines define naturally edges of a graph having as its nodes the points for which pinary cutoff for both coordinates equals to the actual point.

4. I have proposed earlier what I have called symplectic QFT involving a triangulation of the partonic 2-surface. The fluxes of the induced Kähler form over the triangles of the triangulation and the areas of these triangles define symplectic invariants, which are zero modes in the sense that they do not contribute to the line element of WCW although the WCW metric depends on these zero modes as parameters. The physical interpretation is as non-quantum fluctuating classical variables. The triangulation generalizes in an obvious manner to quadrangulation defined by the pinary digits. This quadrangulation is fixed once internal coordinates and measurement accuracy are fixed. If one can identify physically preferred coordinates - say by requiring that coordinates transform in simple manner under isometries - the quadrangulation is highly unique.

5. For 3-surfaces one obtains a decomposition to cube like regions bounded by regions consisting of square like regions and Kähler magnetic fluxes over the squares define symplectic invariants. Also Kähler Chern-Simons invariant for the 3-cube defines an interesting almost symplectic invariant. 4-surface decomposes in a similar manner to 4-cube like regions and now instanton density for the 4-cube reducing to Chern-Simons term at the boundaries of the 4-cube defines symplectic invariant. For 4-surfaces symplectic invariants reduce to Chern-Simons terms over 3-cubes so that in this sense one would have holography. The resulting structure brings in mind lattice gauge theory and effective 2-dimensionality suggests that partonic 2-surfaces are enough.

Does the notion of manifold in finite measurement resolution make sense?

A modification of the notion of manifold taking into account finite measurement resolution might be useful for the purposes of TGD.

1. The chart pages of the manifold would be characterized by a finite measurement resolution and effectively reduce to discrete point sets. Discretization using a finite pinary cutoff would be the basic notion. Notions like topology, differential structure, complex structure, and metric should be defined only modulo finite measurement resolution. The precise realization of this notion is not quite obvious.

2. Should one assume metric and introduce geodesic coordinates as preferred local coordinates in order to achieve general coordinate invariance? Pinary cutoff would be posed for the geodesic coordinates. Or could one use a subset of geodesic coordinates for δ CD× CP₂ as preferred coordinates for partonic 2-surfaces? Should one require that isometries leave distances invariant only in the resolution used?

3. A rather natural approach to the notion of manifold is suggested by the p-adic variants of symplectic spaces based on the discretization of angle variables by phases in an algebraic extension of p-adic numbers containing n^th root of unity and its powers. One can also assign p-adic continuum to each root of unity (see this). This approach is natural for compact symmetric Kähler manifolds such as S² and CP₂. For instance, CP₂ allows a coordinatization in terms of two pairs (P^k,Q^k) of Darboux coordinates or using two pairs (ξ^k,ξ^k*), k=1,2, of complex coordinates. The magnitudes of complex coordinates would be treated in the manner already described and their phases would be described as roots of unity. In the natural quadrangulation defined by the pinary cutoff for |ξ^k| and by roots of unity assigned with their phases, Kähler fluxes would be well-defined within measurement resolution. For light-cone boundary metrically equivalent with S² similar coordinatization using complex coordinates (z,z^*) is possible. Light-like radial coordinate r would appear only as a parameter in the induced metric and pinary cutoff would apply to it.

Hierachy of finite measurement resolutions and hierarchy of p-adic normal Lie groups

The formulation of quantum TGD is almost completely in terms of various symmetry group and it would be highly desirable to formulate the notion of finite measurement resolution in terms of symmetries.

1. In p-adic context any Lie-algebra g with p-adic integers as coefficients has a natural grading based on the p-adic norm of the coefficient just like p-adic numbers have grading in terms of their norm. The sub-algebra g_N with the norm of coefficients not larger than p^-N is an ideal of the algebra since one has [g_M,g_N]⊂ g_M+N: this has of course direct counterpart at the level of p-adic integers. g_N is a normal sub-algebra in the sense that one has [g,g_N]⊂ g_N. The standard expansion of the adjoint action gg_Ng^-1 in terms of exponentials and commutators gives that the p-adic Lie group G_N=exp(tpg_N), where t is p-adic integer, is a normal subgroup of G=exp(tpg). If indeed so then also G/G_N is group, and could perhaps be interpreted as a Lie group of symmetries in finite measurement resolution. G_N in turn would represent the degrees of freedom not visible in the measurement resolution used and would have the role of a gauge group.

2. The notion of finite measurement resolution would have rather elegant and universal representation in terms of various symmetries such as isometries of imbedding space, Kac-Moody symmetries assignable to light-like wormhole throats, symplectic symmetries of δCD× CP₂, the non-local Yangian symmetry, and also general coordinate transformations. This representation would have a counterpart in real context via canonical identification I in the sense that A→ B for p-adic geometric objects would correspond to I(A)→ I(B) for their images under canonical identification. It is rather remarkable that in purely real context this kind of hierarchy of symmetries modulo finite measurement resolution does not exist. The interpretation would be that finite measurement resolution relates to cognition and therefore to p-adic physics.

3. Matrix group G contains only elements of form g=1+O(p^m), m≥ 1 and does not therefore involve matrices with elements expressible in terms roots of unity. These can be included, by writing the elements of the p-adic Lie-group as products of elements of above mentioned G with the elements of a discrete group for which the elements are expressible in terms of roots of unity in an algebraic extension of p-adic numbers. For p-adic prime p p:th roots of unity are natural and suggested strongly by quantum arithmetics.

For background see the chapter Quantum Adeles of "Physics as Generalized Number Theory".