Quantum phase transitions and 4-D spin glass energy landscape

TGD has led to two descriptions for quantum criticality. The first one relies on the notion of 4-D spin glass degeneracy and emerged already around 1990 when I discovered the unique properties of Kähler action. Second description relies on quantum phases and quantum phase transitions and I have tried to explain my understanding about it above. The attempt to understand how these two approaches relate to each other might provide additional insights.

1. Vacuum degeneracy of Kähler action is certainly a key feature of TGD and distinguishes it from all classical field theories. Small deformations of the vacua probably induced by gluing of magnetic flux tubes (primordially cosmic strings) to these vacuum space-time sheets deforms them slightly and would give rise to TGD Universe analogous to 4-D spin glass. The challenge is to relate this description to the vision provided by quantum phases and quantum phase transitions.
   
   
2. In condensed matter physics one speaks of fractal spin glass energy landscape with free energy minima inside free energy minima. This landscape obeys ultrametric topology: p-adic topologies are ultra metric and this was one of the original motivations for the idea that p-adic physics might be relevant for TGD. Free energy is replaced with the sum of Kähler function - Kähler action of Euclidian space-time regions and imaginary Kähler action from Minkowskian space-time regions.
   
   
3. In the fractal spin glass energy landscape there is an infinite number of minima of free energy. The presence of several degenerate minima leads to what is known as frustration. In TGD framework all the vacuum extremals have the same vanishing action so that there is infinite degeneracy and infinite frustration (also created by the attempt to understand what this might imply physically!). The diffeomorphisms of M⁴ and symplectic transformations of CP₂ map vacuum extremals to each other and acts therefore as gauge symmetries. Symplectic transformations indeed act as U(1) gauge transformations. Besides this each Lagrangian sub-manifold of CP₂ defines its own space of vacuum-extremals as orbit of this symplectic group.
   

   As one deforms vacuum extremals slightly to non-vacuum extremals, classical gravitational energy becomes non-vanishing and Kähler action does not vanish anymore and the above gauge symmetries become dynamical symmetries. This picture serves as a useful guideline in the attempts to physically interpret. In TGD inspired quantum biology gravitation plays indeed fundamental role (gravitational Planck constant h_gr).
   
   

4. Can one identify a quantum counterpart of the degeneracy of extremals? The notion of negentropic entanglement (NE) is cornerstone of TGD. In particular, for maximal negentropic entanglement density matrix is proportional to unit matrix so that states are degenerate in the same sense as the states with same energy in thermodynamics. Energy has Kähler function as analogy now: hence the degeneracy of density matrix could correspond to that for Kähler function. More general NE corresponds to algebraic entanglement probabilities and allows to identify unique basis of eigenstates of density matrix. NE is favored by NMP and serves key element of TGD inspired theory of consciousness.
   

   In standard physics degeneracy of density matrix is extremely rare phenomenon as is also entanglement with algebraic entanglement probabilities. These properties are also extremely unstable. TGD must be somehow special. The vacuum degeneracy of Kähler action indeed distinguishes TGD from quantum field theories, and an attractive idea is that the degeneracy associated with NE relates to that for extremals of Kähler action. This is not enough however: NMP is needed to stabilize NE and this occurs only for dark matter (h_eff/h>1 equals to the dimension of density matrix defining NE).
   

   The strong form of holography takes this idea further: 2-D string world sheets and partonic 2-surfaces are labelled by parameters, which belong to algebraic extension of rationals. This replaces effectively infinite-D WCW with discrete spaces characterized by these extensions and allows to unify real and p-adic physics to adelic physics. This hierarchy of algebraic extensions would be behind various hierarchies of quantum TGD, also the hierarchy of deformations of vacuum extremals.
   
   

5. In 3-D spin glass different phases assignable to the bottoms of potential wells in the fractal spin energy landscape compete. In 4-D spin glass energy of TGD also time evolutions compete, and degeneracy and frustration chacterize also time evolutions. In biology the notions of function and behavior corresponds to temporal patterns: functions and behaviors are fighting for survival rather than only organisms.
   

   At quantum level the temporal patterns would correspond to phase transitions perhaps induced by quantum phase transitions for dark matter at the level of magnetic bodies. Phase transitions changing the value of h_eff would define correlates for "behaviors and the above proposed description could apply to them.
   
   

6. Conformal symmetries (the shorthand "conformal is understood in very general sense here) allow to understand not only quantum phases but also quantum phase transitions at fundamental level and "transitons transforming according to representations of Kac-Moody group or gauge group assignable to the inclusion of hyperfinite factors characterized by the integer m in h_eff(f)= m× h_eff(i) could allow precise quantitative description. Fractal symmetry breaking leads to conformal sub-algebra isomorphic with the original one
   

   What could this symmetry breaking correspond in spin energy landscape? The phase transition increasing the dynamical symmetry leads to a bottom of a smaller well in spin energy landscape. The conformal gauge symmetry is reduced and dynamical symmetry increased, and the system becomes more critical. Indeed, the smaller the potential well, the more prone the system is for being kicked outside the well by quantum fluctuations. The smaller the well, the large the value of h_eff. At space-time level this corresponds to a longer scale. At the level of WCW (4-D spin energy landscape) this corresponds to a shorter scale.
   
   

For backbround see the article the chapter Criticality and dark matter of "Hyper-finite Factors and Dark Matter Hierarchy".

For a summary of earlier postings see Links to the latest progress in TGD.