Motivating dualities

Read, James; Møller-Nielsen, Thomas

doi:10.1007/s11229-018-1817-5

Cited by 37 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…We are grateful to an anonymous referee for helpful discussion on this point. Note that there is some parallel between the caution advanced in the above paragraph and that presented in the context of dualities in Read and Møller‐Nielsen ().…”

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confidence: 81%

Duality and ontology

Bihan

Read

2018

Philosophy Compass

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A ''duality'' is a formal mapping between the spaces of solutions of two empirically equivalent theories. In recent times, dualities have been found to be pervasive in string theory and quantum field theory. Naïvely interpreted, duality-related theories appear to make very different ontological claims about the world-differing in, for example, spacetime structure, fundamental ontology, and mereological structure. In light of this, duality-related theories raise questions familiar from discussions of underdetermination in the philosophy of science: in the presence of dual theories, what is one to say about the ontology of the world? In this paper, we undertake a comprehensive and nontechnical survey of the landscape of possible ontological interpretations of duality-related theories. We provide a significantly enriched and clarified taxonomy of options-several of which are novel to the literature. INTRODUCTIONContemporary physics is built upon two central-and prima facie incompatible-frameworks: the theory of general relativity, on the one hand, and the standard model of particle physics-a certain quantum field theory-on the other.Although these two frameworks are strikingly effective at describing the actual world in their relevant domains (viz., macroscopic, astrophysical, and cosmological scales for general relativity, and atomic, subatomic, and molecular scales for the standard model), they rest upon very different assumptions. For example, one central feature of general relativity is that spacetime is rendered dynamical (i.e., it is not a fixed background, but rather ''curves'' in response to its matter content); by contrast, spacetime remains a fixed background in the standard model of particle physics.This notwithstanding, various fields of physics-such as the study of the early universe or of black holes-lie at the intersection of the domains of these two theories and thereby call for a quantum theory of gravity. 1 Constructing such a theory capable of overcoming the tensions between general relativity and the standard model is an ongoing matter of profound difficulty; at present, there exist several candidate options which remain the subject of active research (cf. Huggett & Wüthrich, 2013 for a philosophical overview of such options.)According to the naïve ontological picture presented by string theory-arguably the most popular extant research programme in quantum gravity-reality is constituted by one-dimensional strings, as well as by other higher dimensional entities called ''branes.'' Moreover, reality is not made up of four spacetime dimensions (three spatial

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confidence: 81%

Duality and ontology

Bihan

Read

2018

Philosophy Compass

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“…e.g. [12,13,27,40,45])-nor with the pondering on the question when to identify two theories (cf., for instance, [57]). While we won't critically discuss different positions on these matters, we'll nonetheless adopt a cautious stance.…”

Section: Models and Gauge-invariancementioning

confidence: 99%

Gravitational Energy in Newtonian Gravity: A Response to Dewar and Weatherall

Duerr

Read

2019

Found Phys

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The paper investigates the status of gravitational energy in Newtonian Gravity (NG), developing upon recent work by Dewar and Weatherall. The latter suggest that gravitational energy is a gauge quantity. This is potentially misleading: its gauge status crucially depends on the spacetime setting one adopts. In line with Møller-Nielsen's plea for a motivational approach to symmetries, we supplement Dewar and Weatherall's work by discussing gravitational energy-stress in Newtonian spacetime, Galilean spacetime, Maxwell-Huygens spacetime, and Newton-Cartan Theory (NCT). Although we ultimately concur with Dewar and Weatherall that the notion of gravitational energy is problematic in NCT, our analysis goes beyond their work. The absence of an explicit definition of gravitational energy-stress in NCT somewhat detracts from the force of Dewar and Weatherall's argument. We fill this gap by examining the supposed gauge status of prima facie plausible candidates-NCT analogues of gravitational energy-stress pseudotensors, the Komar mass, and the Bel-Robinson tensor. Our paper further strengthens Dewar and Weatherall's results. In addition, it sheds more light upon the subtle link between sufficiently rich inertial structure and the definability of gravitational energy in NG.

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“…Belot, Earman and Ruetsche (1999); Dongen and De Haro (2004); Maudlin (2017); Wallace(2018, 2019). See also J.van Dongen and S. De Haro (Forthcoming), 'History and Philosophy of the Black Hole Information Paradox' for a historical account of the debate.4 On duality, see for exampleRickles (2011);Matsubara (2013);Dieks, Dongen and De Haro (2015); DeHaro (2017aHaro ( , 2017b; DeHaro and Butterfield (2018); Castellani (2017); Huggett (2017);Read and Møller-Nielsen (2018); for a general history of string theory, seeCappelli et al (2012) andRickles (2014); for a discussion of its methodology, seeDawid (2013).…”

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Conceptual analysis of black hole entropy in string theory

Haro

Dongen

Visser

et al. 2020

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in

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The microscopic state counting of the extremal Reissner-Nordström black hole performed by Andrew Strominger and Cumrun Vafa in 1996 has proven to be a central result in string theory. Here, with a philosophical readership in mind, the argument is presented in its contemporary context and its rather complex conceptual structure is analysed. In particular, we will identify the various inter-theoretic relations, such as duality and linkage relations, on which it depends. We further aim to make clear why the argument was immediately recognised as a successful accounting for the entropy of this black hole and how it engendered subsequent work that intended to strengthen the string theoretic analysis of black holes. Its relation to the formulation of the AdS/CFT conjecture will be briefly discussed, and the familiar reinterpretation of the entropy calculation in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence is given. Finally, we discuss the heuristic role that Strominger and Vafa's microscopic account of black hole entropy played for the black hole information paradox. A companion paper analyses the ontology of the Strominger-Vafa black hole states, the question of emergence of the black hole from a collection of D-branes, and the role of the correspondence principle in the context of string theory black holes.

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Motivating dualities

Cited by 37 publications

References 49 publications

Duality and ontology

Duality and ontology

Gravitational Energy in Newtonian Gravity: A Response to Dewar and Weatherall

Conceptual analysis of black hole entropy in string theory

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