Testing Planck-Scale Gravity with Accelerators - Very interesting Article

Nano-Passion
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This is very interesting, is it the first proposed method (that is within reasonable energy for particle accelerators) to test space at the plank level?

http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.7297

Testing Planck-Scale Gravity with Accelerators
Vahagn Gharibyan

Abstract: Quantum or torsion gravity models predict unusual properties of space-time at very short distances. In particular, near the Planck length, around 10-35  m, empty space may behave as a crystal, singly or doubly refractive. However, this hypothesis remains uncheckable for any direct measurement, since the smallest distance accessible in experiment is about 10-19  m at the LHC. Here I propose a laboratory test to measure the space refractivity and birefringence induced by gravity. A sensitivity from 10-31  m down to the Planck length could be reached at existent GeV and future TeV energy lepton accelerators using laser Compton scattering. There are already experimental hints for gravity signature at distances approaching the Planck length by 5–7 orders of magnitude, derived from SLC and HERA data.

Here is the digested version for the laymen: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-planck-scale-gravity.html
 
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strangerep said:
You might want to check out Bee Hossenfelder's (unusually harsh) criticism of it (and PRL) at her blog: http://backreaction.blogspot.com.au

Thanks, well at least I've stumbled unto a really nice blog. Any else you want to share?
 
At Peter Woit's blog there's a nice little list of both mathematics and physics blogs in the right side of the page when you scroll down a little.
 
sbrothy said:
At Peter Woit's blog there's a nice little list of both mathematics and physics blogs in the right side of the page when you scroll down a little.

Hmm, that's a lot of blogs to get my hands on. Thanks, I've bookmarked the page.
 
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