Emergence of Spacetime in a restricted Spin-foam model

Abstract

The spectral dimension has proven to be a very informative observable to understand the properties of quantum geometries in approaches to quantum gravity. In loop quantum gravity and its spin foam description, it has not been possible so far to calculate the spectral dimension of spacetime. As a first step towards this goal, here we determine the spacetime spectral dimension in the simplified spin foam model restricted to hypercuboids. Using Monte Carlo methods we compute the spectral dimension for state sums over periodic spin foam configurations on infinite lattices. For given periodicity, i.e. number of degrees of freedom, we find a range of scale where an intermediate spectral dimension between 0 and 4 can be found, continuously depending on the parameter of the model. Under an assumption on the statistical behaviour of the Laplacian we can explain these results analytically. This allows us to take the thermodynamic limit of large periodicity and find a phase transition from a regime of effectively 0-dimensional to 4-dimensional spacetime. At the point of phase transition, dynamics of the model are scale invariant which can be seen as restoration of diffeomorphism invariance of flat space. Considering the spectral dimension as an order parameter for renormalization we find a renormalization group flow to this point as well. Being the first instance of an emergence of 4-dimensional spacetime in a spin foam model, the properties responsible for this result seem to be rather generic. We thus expect similar results for more general, less restricted spin foam models.