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# Crossover from Fragile to Strong Glassy Behaviour in Kinetically Constrained Systems

## Abstract

We show the existence of fragile-to-strong transitions in kinetically constrained systems by studying the equilibrium and out-of-equilibrium dynamics of a generic constrained Ising spin chain which interpolates between the symmetric and fully asymmetric cases. We find that for large but finite asymmetry the model displays a crossover from fragile to strong glassy behaviour at finite temperature, which is controlled by the asymmetry parameter. The relaxation in the fragile region presents stretched exponential behaviour, with a temperature dependent stretching exponent which is predicted. Our results are confirmed by numerical simulations.

PACS numbers: 64.70.Pf, 75.10.Hk, 05.70.Ln

Glasses are everywhere in nature. It is difficult to find a liquid which when supercooled does not form the amorphous, microscopically disordered solid we call a glass. The salient feature of supercooled liquids is their dramatical slowing down with decreasing temperature, signaled by the increase of their relaxation times and viscosities by several orders of magnitudes in a temperature range of a few decades. For reviews see .

Given the generic nature of the glassy state, universal principles for the classification of glass-forming materials are of paramount importance. Central to this is the concept of fragility , which measures the speed with which viscosity and relaxation times grow as a system approaches the glass transition temperature. Liquids which display Arrhenius behaviour, that is, the logarithm of their viscosity or relaxation time grows linearly with inverse temperature, are classified as ‘strong’ , as for example network liquids like SiO2 and GeO2, and define one of the extremes of the classification by fragility. Most liquids, however, behave in a non-Arrhenius manner, and the larger the departure from Arrhenius behaviour, the more ‘fragile’ , the most fragile liquids, which define the second extreme in fragility, being polymeric in nature. An exception to this classification is supercooled water : at temperatures close to its melting point it behaves as extremely fragile, while near the glass transition it is very strong. Supercooled water has a fragile-to-strong transition.

Some of the simplest systems which display the slow cooperative relaxation characteristic of glasses are the facilitated kinetic Ising models, first introduced by Fredrickson and Andersen , in which glassiness is not a consequence of either disorder or frustration in the interactions, but of the presence of kinetic constraints in the dynamics of the system. Depending on whether the constraints are isotropic , or fully directed , these models may behave as strong or fragile glasses, and the low temperature dynamics can be understood in terms of activation over energy barriers . They are particularly useful in the study of activated processes, which become highly relevant for supercooled liquids near the glass transition, but are not taken into account by approximations like mode-coupling theory  or mean-field models .

The purpose of this Letter is to show that fragile-to-strong transitions also occur in kinetically constrained systems. We prove this for the simplest case of the one-spin facilitated Ising chain. We study a generalization of the kinetically constrained Ising chain which interpolates between the cases of symmetric  and fully asymmetric constraints . We show that for large but finite asymmetry the model displays a fragile-to-strong crossover at finite temperature. The crossover temperature is controlled by the asymmetry parameter, which also determines the largest timescale and energy barrier of the problem. The relaxation in the fragile region presents stretched exponential behaviour, with a temperature dependent stretching exponent which is obtained analytically. We performed extensive numerical simulations to confirm our results.

We consider a chain of Ising spins $`\sigma _i\{0,1\}`$ $`(i=1,\mathrm{},N)`$, with periodic boundary conditions, and Hamiltonian $`H=_i\sigma _i`$. The dynamics is restricted to single flips of spins which have at least one nearest neighbour in the up state. The rates for the possible transitions are in general different depending on whether the up neighbour is on the right or left, and are given by:

$$11\stackrel{b}{}01,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}01}\stackrel{bϵ}{}11,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}11}\stackrel{1b}{}10,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}10}\stackrel{(1b)ϵ}{}11,$$
(1)
where $`b[0,1]`$ and $`ϵ\mathrm{exp}(1/T)`$. Detailed balance is obeyed, and the stationary distribution is the Boltzmann distribution at temperature $`T`$ for the Hamiltonian $`H`$. The parameter $`b`$ sets the degree of asymmetry of the kinetic constraints. The limiting values $`b=1/2`$ and $`b=0`$ (or $`1`$) correspond to the Fredrickson–Andersen (FA) model  and the asymmetrically constrained Ising chain (ACIC) , respectively.

Due to the non-interacting nature of the Hamiltonian the thermodynamical properties of the model are trivial, and are the same for any $`b`$. The energy density is given by the concentration $`c`$ of up spins (or ‘defects’), which in equilibrium becomes $`c_{\mathrm{eq}}=ϵ/(1+ϵ)`$. At low temperatures $`c`$ is very small, and since defects facilitate the dynamics, the system slows down: isolated up spins are locally stable and the system has to overcome energy barriers to evolve.

In contrast with the statics, the low temperature dynamics depends strongly on the value of $`b`$ (except at $`T`$ strictly zero ). In the symmetric limit $`b=1/2`$, which corresponds to the FA model, isolated defects can diffuse to the left (resp. right) by means of processes (ii) and (iii) \[resp. (iv) and (i)\] of Eq. (1). Each move requires the temporary creation of one defect, so there is a single activation barrier to diffusion $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=1`$. This constancy of the energy barriers implies that relaxation times follow the Arrhenius law $`\tau _{\mathrm{FA}}\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Delta }E/T)`$, characteristic of strong glass behaviour . The decay of the concentration of up spins, in the out of equilibrium regime, is well approximated by the coagulation process $`A+AA`$, which means that the typical lengthscale grows as $`l(t/\tau )^{1/2}`$ . The situation in the asymmetric limit $`b=0`$ or $`1`$, which corresponds to the ACIC model , is very different. Here the activated diffusion mechanism of the symmetric case is absent: a defect at a distance $`2^{n1}<d2^n`$ from the nearest defect (in the direction of the constraint) has to cross a barrier $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=n`$ to move , i.e., barriers grow with the logarithm of the size of relaxing regions. This means that typical lengthscales grow as $`lt^{T\mathrm{ln}2}`$, which leads to a relaxation time at low temperatures of the form $`\tau _{\mathrm{ACIC}}\mathrm{exp}(1/T^2\mathrm{ln}2)`$ . This is the Bässler law  used as an alternative to the Vogel-Fulcher equation  to represent fragile behaviour. The absence of a finite temperature singularity is consistent with the trivial statics of the ACIC model.

We now consider the behaviour at intermediate values of the asymmetry $`b`$. We first focus on the relaxation towards equilibrium after a quench from infinite temperature. When $`b`$ is not far from the symmetric limit $`b=1/2`$, the rates of Eq. (1) for reactions to the left and right are comparable and the symmetric diffusive mechanism is still effective: the behaviour is essentially that of the FA model. The region of large but finite asymmetry, that is, when $`b`$ (or $`1b`$) is small, is more interesting. In this case rates (i) and (ii) of Eq. (1) are very much suppressed respect to rates (iii) and (iv) (or vice-versa), the system can only make use of the asymmetric mechanism to relax, and behaves like the ACIC. The timescales associated with the asymmetric process, however, grow as the relaxing regions become larger: the timescale for relaxation of a region of length $`2^{n1}<d2^n`$ is $`\tau _A^{(n)}ϵ^n`$, and the dynamics takes place in stages labeled by $`n`$ . The timescale for the symmetric process, $`\tau _S[b(1b)ϵ]^1`$, is large, but not infinite, except in the ACIC limit, and in contrast to the asymmetric one does not grow with increasing length. This means that eventually $`\tau _S`$ becomes comparable to $`\tau _A^{(n)}`$ for some value of $`n`$. This defines the last stage of asymmetric relaxation $`n^{}`$ before the system switches to symmetric behaviour:

$$n^{}1T\mathrm{ln}[b(1b)].$$
(2)
In Fig. 1 we show the decay of defect concentration $`c`$ (the energy density of the system) as a function of time $`t`$ after a quench from an initial state at $`T_0=\mathrm{}`$ to a low temperature $`T=1/6`$, for several values of the asymmetry $`b`$. For the $`b=0`$ ACIC limit, at least four plateaus in the concentration are visible, which correspond to the different stages in the dynamics. The number of plateaus decreases with increasing $`b`$ in accordance with Eq. (2): there are three plateaus for $`b=10^5`$ ($`n^{}=2.9`$), two for $`b=10^4`$ and $`10^3`$ ($`n^{}=2.5`$ and $`2.2`$), and only one for $`b=10^2`$ and $`1/2`$ ($`n^{}=1.7`$ and $`1.1`$), the latter being the FA limit. The Inset shows how the typical lengthscale $`l1/c`$ grows with time. While in the ACIC case it follows $`t^{T\mathrm{ln}2}`$ (lower dashed line), for all the nonzero values of $`b`$ the system eventually switches to the diffusive $`t^{1/2}`$ behaviour of the FA case (upper dashed line).

Let us turn to the implications that a finite asymmetry has on the relaxation time of the system. For arbitrary $`b`$, the symmetric and asymmetric processes compete. The relaxation timescale is given by $`\tau \left(\tau _S^1+\tau _{\mathrm{ACIC}}^1\right)^1`$, assuming that the corresponding rates add up. The factor $`b(1b)`$ in the symmetric relaxation timescale $`\tau _S`$ can be interpreted as an entropic barrier: $`\tau _S\mathrm{exp}\{[\mathrm{\Delta }ET\mathrm{ln}b(1b)]/T\}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=1`$. Notice that this ‘free energy’ barrier is precisely $`n^{}`$ of Eq. (2). Thus, the suppression of the symmetric mechanism due to $`b`$ decreases with decreasing temperature. The consequence of this on the relaxation time for a fixed value of $`b`$ is the following. At higher temperatures the asymmetric process dominates, $`\tau \tau _{\mathrm{ACIC}}`$, and the system displays fragile relaxation. At lower temperatures, the symmetric process becomes dominant, $`\tau \tau _S`$, and the behaviour is strong. The crossover temperature for this fragile-to-strong transition is determined by $`b`$,

$$T_c\frac{1\sqrt{14\mathrm{ln}[b(1b)]/\mathrm{ln}2}}{2\mathrm{ln}[b(1b)]},$$
(3)
corresponding to $`\tau _S\tau _{\mathrm{ACIC}}`$.

In Fig. 2 we show the equilibrium relaxation time $`\tau `$ as a function of inverse temperature $`1/T`$. Given that the static properties of the system are known exactly it is simple to construct low temperature equilibrium configurations. This allows to study the equilibrium dynamics down to really low temperatures in contrast with most glassy systems where only out of equilibrium quantities are accessible. We obtain the relaxation time through the connected equilibrium autocorrelation function, $`C(t)N^1_i\sigma _i(t)\sigma _i(0)c_{\mathrm{eq}}^2`$, where $`\tau `$ is defined by $`C(\tau )=e^1C(0)`$. Alternative definitions of the equilibrium relaxation timescale give similar results. The figure shows the following features: (i) in the $`b=0`$ ACIC limit, the relaxation time has the fragile behaviour $`\tau _{\mathrm{ACIC}}`$ for all temperatures, as expected; (ii) for small $`b`$, $`\tau `$ crosses over from fragile $`\tau _{\mathrm{ACIC}}`$ at higher temperatures to strong $`\tau _S`$ behaviour at lower ones, the crossover taking place around $`T_c`$ given by Eq. (3) (e.g., $`1/T_c=3.2`$ for $`b=10^5`$ and $`1/T_c=2.9`$ for $`b=10^4`$); (iii) for larger $`b`$ the fragile region shrinks, and disappears completely at the FA limit $`b=1/2`$. The displacement of the curves in the strong regime is due to the entropic barrier. Rescaling the relaxation time by $`\tau b(1b)\tau `$ makes them collapse, as shown in the top-right panel of Fig. 2. The bottom-right panel gives the effective activation barrier $`\mathrm{\Delta }Ed\mathrm{ln}\tau /d(1/T)`$. The crossover here appears as a change from the linear growth in the ACIC to the constant barrier of the FA model. The crossover is sharper the smaller $`b`$. The high temperature behaviour of $`\tau `$ is exponential in $`1/T`$, which gives the offset in the straight line for $`b=0`$, and becomes irrelevant at low temperatures. The slope of $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ is about $`1.7`$ rather than $`2/\mathrm{ln}2`$. This difference is due to the non-exponential nature of the autocorrelation, which does not affect the $`1/T^2`$ behaviour of the log of $`\tau `$.

The fragile-to-strong crossover can also be observed in the behaviour of equilibrium dynamical quantities. The simplest one to study is the equilibrium persistence, $`P(t)N^1c^1_i_{t^{}=0}^t\sigma _i(t^{})`$, which measures the fraction of defects of the initial configuration which have never flipped between times $`0`$ and $`t`$. It is closely related to the equilibrium autocorrelation $`C(t)`$, but is free from the problem of the recurrence of defects which makes the analysis of the latter more tricky, particularly in one dimension.

As mentioned before, in the asymmetric limit, the probability to flip a defect depends on the distance to the nearest defect in the direction of the constraint. In equilibrium, the probability distribution of these distances is independent of time. The persistence may be then approximated by the sum of the independent exponential relaxation of defects at different distances from their neighbours, $`P(t)c_{\mathrm{eq}}e^{t/\tau _0}+_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}p_ne^{t/\tau _A^{(n)}}`$, where $`\tau _01`$ is the timescale associated with the initial $`T`$ independent transient, and $`p_n=(1c_{\mathrm{eq}})^{2^{n1}}(1c_{\mathrm{eq}})^{2^n}`$ is the probability for a defect to have a chain of spins $`0`$ of length $`2^{n1}d<2^n`$ next to it, which takes into account the fact that the relaxation time for the corresponding distances is $`\tau _A^{(n)}`$. The equilibrium condition is crucial to assume an independent relaxation of the different lengthscales. If the initial configuration is an out of equilibrium one, the probability distribution of distances evolves in time and the approximation considered is no longer valid. For short times the persistence is dominated by the fastest exponential decay, leading to $`\mathrm{ln}Pt/\stackrel{~}{\tau }`$ for low temperatures, where $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }\tau _0/c_{\mathrm{eq}}`$ defines the timescale for short times. The long time behaviour may be estimated replacing the sum by an integral which is evaluated in the saddle point approximation, in a manner similar to that of Ref. . As a result we obtain a stretched exponential $`P(t)\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(t/\tau _{\mathrm{ACIC}}\right)^\beta \right]`$, with a stretching exponent

$$\beta =(1+1/T\mathrm{ln}2)^1.$$
(4)
Notice that this is an alternative method to obtain $`\tau _{\mathrm{ACIC}}`$ to the one of Ref. . In the symmetric limit the persistence is simply the sum of the relaxation of defects with and without an up neighbour. At low temperatures it reads $`P(t)2c_{\mathrm{eq}}e^{t/\tau _0}+(12c_{\mathrm{eq}})e^{t/\tau _S}`$. The small time behaviour is similar to the asymmetric case, while the long time one is given by $`P(t)\mathrm{exp}(t/\tau _S)`$.

The behaviour of the persistence for $`b=10^5`$ and $`b=10^3`$ at different temperatures is shown in Fig. 3. We present the data in a double log scale for $`P`$ and a log scale for $`t`$ to display the different stretching exponents. As in the case of the out of equilibrium relaxation, the decay is first dominated by the asymmetric process corresponding to the fragile regime. For short times it is exponential with a characteristic timescale $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }ϵ^1`$, as described above. At longer times we see a change of slope in the plot, which corresponds to stretched exponential behaviour, with an exponent given by Eq. (4). The stretching region is larger for smaller $`b`$, as expected. The fragile-to-strong crossover then takes place, and the persistence becomes exponential again, now with a timescale $`\tau _S`$. In the Insets we rescale time by a factor of $`ϵ`$ to superimpose the curves in the exponential regimes of short and long times. The two limiting lines correspond to $`\mathrm{exp}(t/\stackrel{~}{\tau })`$ and $`\mathrm{exp}(t/\tau _S)`$.

We conclude with a comment on the explicit spatial asymmetry in the definition of the model studied here. It seems that to obtain other than strong behaviour in systems with kinetic constraints it is necessary to consider cases in which spatial isotropy is explicitly broken, like in the ACIC  or its generalizations, which is a rather unphysical feature. This is also the case of systems with interactions, but which display a dynamical behaviour similar to the spin facilitated models . The system considered in this work, however, can be defined in an alternative but explicitly spatially symmetric formulation, which also clarifies the relation between the asymmetry $`b`$ and the timescale and lengthscale at which the fragile-to-strong crossover takes place . Consider $`b`$ as a collective field $`b(t)`$ which takes values $`0`$ and $`1`$ with a characteristic timescale for flipping $`\tau _b`$. The simplest physical choice for this dynamics would be a Poisson process. $`b(t)`$ may also have a spatial dependence, but on lengthscales larger than the typical ones for the spin system. Since $`b(t)=1/2`$ spatial symmetry is unbroken. The instantaneous value of $`b(t)`$ is either $`0`$ or $`1`$, so for times smaller than $`\tau _b`$ the behaviour is that of the asymmetric case. For times much larger than $`\tau _b`$ the system effectively sees the average of $`b(t)`$ and the behaviour is the symmetric one. $`\tau _b`$ sets the timescale for the fragile-to-strong crossover. This argument is easily generalized to higher dimensions by considering a collective vector field instead.

The authors would like to thank David Chandler, Andrea Crisanti, Félix Ritort, Andrea Rocco, and Peter Sollich for useful discussions. The work of AB is supported by EU Grant No. HPMF-CT-1999-00328 and that of JPG by a Violette and Samuel Glasstone Research Fellowship.


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# References

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Heavy-Ion Physics at the LHC

This document111On Dec. 20, 2000, a group of interested people met at LBNL to examine the possibility and prospects of US participation in heavy-ion experiments at the LHC. The conclusions, incorporating considerable input from the community at large, are presented in this white paper. is to be presented at the Town Meeting at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Jan. 21-23, 2001, and made available to NSAC to aid in the long range planning process.

1. Why should the US actively participate in the LHC heavy-ion physics program?

In 2006, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN will be the highest energy accelerator operating on Earth. Its approved experimental program includes a strong heavy-ion collision component, with one dedicated heavy-ion experiment, ALICE, and an additional heavy-ion program in CMS. LHC data from heavy-ion collisions at unprecedentedly high energies will thus begin to complement the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) scientific program shortly after 2006. Even a moderate US participation in the LHC heavy-ion experiments will have a significant impact on the LHC program. At the same time, this will lead to a very positive feedback on the understanding of RHIC physics and dynamics.

The center of mass energy for heavy-ion collisions at the LHC will exceed that at RHIC by a factor of about 30. This provides exciting opportunities for addressing unique physics issues in a completely new energy domain:

* LHC-energy heavy-ion collisions provide a unique opportunity to study the properties and dynamics of QCD in the classical regime. The density of the low $`x`$ virtual gluons in the initial state will be high enough for saturation to set in so that their subsequent time evolution is governed by classical chromodynamics.
* Due to the higher incident energy compared to RHIC, semihard and hard processes will be a dominant feature at the LHC and gross properties of the collision can be reliably calculated using perturbative QCD.
* Very hard strongly interacting probes, whose attenuation can be used to study the early classical chromodynamic and thermalization stages of the collision, are produced at sufficiently high rates for detailed measurements.
* Weakly interacting probes, such as direct photons, $`W^\pm `$ and $`Z^0`$ bosons produced in hard processes, will provide information about nuclear parton distributions at very high $`Q^2`$. The impact parameter dependence of their production is sensitive to the spatial dependence of shadowing and saturation effects.
* Compared to RHIC, the ratio of the lifetime of the quark-gluon plasma state to the time for thermalization is expected to be larger by an order of magnitude so that parton dynamics will dominate the fireball expansion and the collective features of the hadronic final state.

A complete picture of heavy-ion collision dynamics at high energies requires the analysis of the complementary information gained at both RHIC and the LHC. US participation in both programs is essential for securing a stable place at the frontier of heavy-ion research for our scientific community.

2. New opportunities for heavy-ion physics at the LHC

2.1 General conditions of heavy-ion collisions at the LHC

The center of mass energy for collisions of the heaviest ions at the LHC will exceed that available at RHIC by a factor of about 30. This opens up a new physics domain with exciting opportunities. Historical experience suggests that such a large jump in available energy usually leads to new discoveries. Whereas the SPS has produced excited strongly interacting matter near the conditions for quark deconfinement , the goal of the heavy-ion experimental programs at RHIC and the LHC is to investigate the quark-gluon plasma in full detail. RHIC is the first machine that allows deep penetration into this new phase, creating quark-gluon plasmas which are sufficiently long-lived to make them accessible to a variety of specific experimental probes. A comprehensive experimental program addressing this exciting physics, which foresees a broad range of systematic studies and future upgrades to both the machine and the detectors, has been put into place and will dominate the US effort in this field for the coming decade.

Heavy-ion collisions at the even higher LHC energy, on the other hand, will explore regions of energy and particle density which are significantly beyond those reachable at RHIC. At LHC energies, the bulk of particle production will be due to collisions between low-$`x`$ virtual gluons in the incoming nuclei. The colliding nuclei before impact may be described as densely packed “gluon walls” approaching each other at the speed of light. The phase-space density of low momentum gluons is saturated and gluon merging becomes important . As a result the gluon density is sharply reduced compared to low-density perturbative expectations, limiting in a self-consistent way the growth of the production cross section for low-$`p_T`$ minijets. This qualitatively new regime of “gluon saturation” at low $`x`$ and large $`A`$ becomes accessible for the first time with heavy ions in the LHC. In Pb+Pb collisions at the LHC, the $`p_T`$-scale at which gluon saturation sets in is estimated to be around 2 GeV . At this scale, perturbative QCD is likely to be applicable. For the first time the bulk of transverse energy and particle production as well as the initial conditions for the subsequent expansion of the hot matter formed in the reaction zone can thus be reliably calculated within perturbative QCD.

While the concept of a dense wall of virtual gluons in the incoming nuclei can be probed in $`eA`$ collisions , in $`AA`$ collisions it plays a decisive role in our thinking about the production of dense strongly interacting matter and its subsequent evolution into a thermalized quark-gluon plasma. When two nuclei collide, the phase coherence among their virtual partonic constituents is broken and these partons come on shell. Due to the large number of gluons in any given low-$`p_T`$ quantum state this process may be described by classical chromodynamics. Theoretical methods based on such classical concepts (Weizsäcker-Williams fields , classical Yang-Mills dynamics , etc.) have been developed in recent years and can be experimentally tested at the LHC. Classical Yang-Mills fields are known to exhibit chaotic evolution, and this may be an important mechanism for early thermalization of the particles produced during the initial stage of the collision .

The energy density of the thermalized matter created at the LHC is estimated to be 20 times higher than can be reached at RHIC, implying an initial temperature $`T_0`$ which is greater by more than a factor of 2 . Due to the higher initial parton density, thermalization also happens more rapidly, and the ratio of the quark-gluon plasma lifetime (i.e. the time until the first hadrons begin to form) to the thermalization time accordingly increases by a factor 10. As a result, the fireballs created in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC spend nearly their entire lifetime in a purely partonic state, widening the time window available for experimentally probing the quark-gluon plasma state.

Studies of the quark-gluon plasma can be done efficiently by using “hard probes” , e.g. high-$`p_T`$ jets or photons, heavy quarkonia, and $`W^\pm `$ or $`Z^0`$ mesons. The “hard scale” characterizing these probes is the squared momentum transfer, $`Q^2`$, necessary for their production. At the high collision energies provided by the LHC, the cross sections for very high $`Q^2>`$ (50 GeV)2 processes are large enough to comfortably allow detailed experimental studies. The hard probes are created at very short times, $`\tau _{\mathrm{hard}}1/Q0.01`$ fm/$`c`$, and their production can be calculated perturbatively once the nuclear structure functions are known. This time is early enough to probe the classical chromodynamic stage of the collision during which the “gluon walls” decay. The bulk of the secondary matter materializes somewhat later, at $`\tau _01/T_00.2`$ fm/$`c`$. The hard probes are embedded in this secondary matter and explore its properties by scattering off it on their way out. The time available for this “probing” is of the order of $`510`$ fm/$`c`$, given by the lifetime of the hot QGP state or the time needed for the probe to travel through the reaction zone, whichever is shorter. The medium dependence of these scattering processes can be calculated theoretically  so that the properties of the medium can be inferred from the measured final state of the hard probe.

2.2 Unique physics questions and specific probes at the LHC

The high energy scale of the LHC makes heavy-ion collisions sensitive to the nuclear parton distributions, $`f_A(x,Q^2)`$, at very low $`x`$, $`x10^3`$. High parton densities leading to partonic overlap, gluon recombination and saturation are generally expected for sufficiently small values of $`x`$ and/or $`Q^2`$ and large mass numbers $`A`$. In Pb+Pb collisions at the LHC, gluon saturation strongly affects the production of secondary partons with $`p_T<2`$ GeV. Different probes can be used to explore the consequences of gluon recombination and saturation on the nuclear structure functions, i.e. on the distribution of virtual quarks, antiquarks and gluons in the pre-collision wave function of the incoming nuclei, and to study their effect on the density and further evolution of the post-collision environment.

In order to probe the pre-collision state of the nuclei and to measure the initial nuclear wave function, one can study the production of direct photons, $`W^\pm `$ and $`Z^0`$ vector bosons (observed through their leptonic decay channels), and the yields of open charm and beauty mesons. Direct photons are sensitive to the quark and gluon distributions whereas the vector bosons probe mostly the quark and anti-quark distributions. Open charm and beauty production measures properties of the gluon distribution function. $`W^\pm `$ and $`Z^0`$ production can be studied in $`pp`$ collisions at RHIC, but in $`AA`$ collisions the RHIC energy is too low for an accurate measurement. A high-statistics study of $`W^\pm `$ and $`Z^0`$ vector bosons in $`AA`$ collisions would thus be unique to the LHC .

The probes mentioned previously can be used to measure shadowing, i.e. the modification of the free nucleon parton distributions by the nuclear medium. In addition to the unmodified structure functions, accessible in $`ep`$ and $`pp`$ collisions, and the homogeneous shadowing, which can be studied in $`eA`$, $`pA`$ and $`AA`$ collisions, $`AA`$ collisions also allow the investigation of the spatial dependence of shadowing in the plane transverse to the collision axis by studying hard probe production as a function of impact parameter .

At the LHC the nuclear parton distributions will be probed at much lower $`x`$ and higher $`Q^2`$ than at RHIC. This added reach is critical for exploring the kinematic region where the partons overlap and where the interesting saturation effects can be observed.

The post-collision environment can be studied with hard probes which undergo strong final state interactions. Such probes are high-$`p_T`$ quark and gluon jets, the hadronic decays of $`W^\pm `$ and $`Z^0`$ bosons, and heavy quarkonia. Due to their hard production scales, they materialize very early after the collision and are thus embedded into and propagate through the dense environment of softer secondary particles as it forms and evolves. Through their interactions with these particles they measure the properties of the evolving medium and are sensitive to the formation of a quark-gluon plasma. Large transverse momentum probes are easily isolated experimentally from the background of soft particles produced in the collision. The high $`p_T`$ of the probes ensures that the medium effects are perturbatively calculable which strengthens their usefulness as quantitative diagnostic tools. At the LHC the production rates for jets with $`p_T>50`$ GeV are several orders of magnitude larger than at RHIC, allowing for systematic studies with high statistics in clean kinematic regions, far beyond where the RHIC experiments reach their limits.

Quark jets of known energy can be produced in reactions such as $`g+qq+\gamma `$ or $`g+qq+Z^0`$. At the LHC, $`Z^0+`$jet final states become measurable and may provide a more distinctive signature because the $`Z^0`$ is free from the high background of hadronic decays contributing to the direct photon spectrum . The initial energy of the quark jet can be inferred from the measured momentum of the $`Z^0`$ or photon. Any energy loss of the jet suffered by interactions with the hot medium can thus be cleanly identified . The measured energy loss yields the opacity of the medium, i.e. the product of the cross section between the hard probe and the partons in the medium and their density . In kinematic regions where the rescattering cross section can be reliably calculated, the opacity provides access to the parton density after the collision and allows one to determine how it is affected by gluon saturation. Similar information can be extracted from a measurement of the ratio of monojet to dijet final states . At the LHC, both types of measurements will be observable over a wide kinematic range, thus allowing studies of the energy loss as a function of jet $`p_T`$.

Heavy quarkonia also provide sensitive probes of the parton densities after the collision. In a dense medium, the formation of charmonium and bottonium states is inhibited since the medium screens the interaction between the heavy quark and antiquark. Different resonances “melt” at different temperatures, such that they act as a “thermometer” to probe the temperature attained in the collision. Systematic measurement of many different quarkonium states, including the dependence of the suppression effect on their transverse momenta, are required to fully understand the system . At RHIC, investigation of the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ system will be severely limited by statistics while at the LHC both $`c\overline{c}`$ and $`b\overline{b}`$ resonances can be studied in detail. It has been argued that the interpretation of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ suppression data is cleaner than for the $`J/\psi `$ due to reduced rescattering effects with hadrons during the late collision stages, a further point in favor of studying heavy quarkonia at the LHC where the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ family is comfortably accessible. Finally, we note that at the LHC secondary $`J/\psi `$ production from $`BJ/\psi +X`$ becomes relevant. Since $`B`$ mesons are sensitive to the energy loss of $`b`$ quarks , these secondary $`J/\psi `$ mesons can be used as a further probe of jet quenching .

Higher production cross sections at the LHC also favorably affect the study of physics issues which are accessible in peripheral nuclear collisions where the two nuclei do not overlap. Multiple vector meson production will be greatly increased . Photoproduction of top quarks in peripheral collisions becomes possible and probes the nuclear gluon distribution function at high $`Q^2`$ . Finally, photoproduction of $`c\overline{c}`$ and $`b\overline{b}`$ will provide an alternate method for measuring the low-$`x`$ gluon distribution .

We have stressed those aspects of heavy-ion physics at the LHC which are unique or qualitatively different from RHIC. In addition to these, experiments at the LHC will also study soft probes, building on what has been done at RHIC. The increased energy will extend measurements of excitation functions far beyond RHIC data, thus providing a significant additional lever arm. The increased final muliplicity densities will allow for improved measurements of many soft physics observables which require high statistics, especially event-by-event fluctuations and correlation measurements.

3. General Perspective. Size and scope of the proposed effort.

The LHC is the latest in a long line of particle accelerators exploring physics at the high-energy frontier. It is a global project with contributions from five continents. Its colliding proton and heavy-ion beams will deliver the highest energies worldwide for years to come. Furthermore, it is unclear when or if there will be another even more powerful hadron collider after the LHC. The US high energy physics community has participated in all major high energy projects and is presently investing 440 million US dollars into the construction of the LHC and its particle physics experiments, thereby securing its place at the front of high energy physics research. Similarly, to study relativistic heavy-ion collisions at the frontier, the US heavy-ion community has always made use of or constructed the latest and best facilities available. The LHC should not become the first exception.

Four large experiments, covering a rich and very exciting physics program, have been planned for the LHC. This program is broadly accepted by the scientific community at large and has been approved by all relevant CERN Committees. Detector construction is well on its way and expected to be largely complete in 2005. One of the LHC detectors, ALICE, is a dedicated heavy-ion experiment. Another experiment, CMS, has incorporated heavy-ion studies as an integral part of their scientific program. New data from heavy-ion collisions at unprecedentedly high energies will thus emerge shortly after the LHC turn-on in 2006, complementing the scientific program at RHIC. It is very important that the US be involved in both programs, even while RHIC, our “in house” facility, continues to be at the focus of the US heavy-ion effort. In order to fully understand the dynamics of nuclear matter under extreme conditions the entire available energy range must be spanned with a study of the phenomena in both kinematic regimes.

Due to the heavy US commitment towards RHIC, both in terms of manpower and funding resources, there can be only a moderate US involvement in the planned heavy-ion program at the LHC. However, such involvement would ensure the diversity that has always been a very strong aspect of our field. Alhough the LHC detector designs are already well advanced, a number of opportunities remain for a significant impact on the physics by the participation of the US heavy-ion community. At a recent workshop held in Berkeley on Dec.20, 2000, entitled “LHC-USA”, dedicated to LHC relativistic heavy-ion physics and the anticipated US participation in the program, these opportunities were examined. It was concluded that a meaningful US involvement should be at the level of about 10$`\%`$ of the US manpower presently involved in RHIC, and about 10 million US dollars in financial resources. This seems to be a moderate price to pay for access to this totally new physics domain, thereby securing for the US a stable place among the leading nations in relativistic heavy-ion physics.

Agenda of the “LHC-USA” Workshop at LBL, Dec. 20, 2000:

| 9:00 - 9:10 Grazyna Odyniec: Welcome, organizational remarks |
| --- |
| 9:10 - 9:50 Miklos Gyulassy: “Strong (classical) and Weak (pQCD) Gluon Fields at LHC” |
| 9:50 - 10:30 Ulrich Heinz: “ALICE Physics” |
| 10:30 - 11:00 Coffee |
| 11:00 - 11:30 Spencer Klein: “Quarkonia at LHC” |
| 11:30 - 12:10 Terry Awes: “Direct Photons in PHOS Detector” |
| 12:10 - 12:30 Tom Humanic: “Present Ohio State Univ. Involvement in ALICE” |
| 12:30 - 1:30 Lunch |
| 1:30 - 2:00 Bjørn Nilsen: “Cosmic Ray Measurements that Can be Done only Using ALICE” |
| 2:00 - 2:15 Larry Pinsky: “Houston’s Potential Responsibilities within ALICE” |
| 2:15 - 2:25 Jo Schambach: “On L3 Trigger for ALICE - Austin Involvement” |
| 2:25 - 2:40 Bolek Wyslouch: “Alice TRD in Phobos” |
| 2:40 - 3:10 Daniel Ferenc: “Selective Observables of Direct Photons Using Correlations” |
| 3:10 - 3:30 coffee |
| 3:30 - 7:00 discussion of content of the document, distribution of work, time scale … |
| 7:30 dinner |

Contributors and Workshop participants:

| T. Awes | Oak Ridge National Laboratory |
| --- | --- |
| H. Crawford | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory |
| J. Engelage | University of California at Berkeley |
| D. Ferenc | University of California at Davis |
| M. Gyulassy | Columbia University |
| D. Hardtke | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory |
| U. Heinz | Ohio State University |
| G. Hoffmann | University of Texas, Austin |
| T. Humanic | Ohio State University |
| P. Huovinen | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory |
| P. Jacobs | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory |
| E. Judd | University of California at Berkeley |

| S. Klein | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory |
| --- | --- |
| V. Koch | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory |
| B.S. Nilsen | Ohio State University |
| G. Odyniec | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory |
| L. Pinsky | University of Houston |
| H.G. Ritter | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory |
| J. Schambach | University of Texas, Austin |
| L. Schroeder | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory |
| J. Symons | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory |
| R. Snellings | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory |
| R. Vogt | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UCD |
| B. Wyslouch | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |

Editors:

| Terry Awes | ORNL |
| --- | --- |
| Ulrich Heinz | OSU |
| Tom Humanic | OSU |
| Spencer Klein | LBNL |
| Bjørn Nilsen | OSU |
| Grazyna Odyniec | LBNL |
| Ramona Vogt | LBNL and UCD |

Contacts:

| Tom Humanic | Humanic`@`mps.ohio-state.edu |
| --- | --- |
| Grazyna Odyniec | G$`\mathrm{\_}`$Odyniec`@`lbl.gov |


text:
# 1 Introduction and summary

## 1 Introduction and summary

Work done in the last two decades  and particularly over the last few years  has corrected an old misconception that it would not be possible to gain experimental insight on “quantum gravity” (the sought theory of the interplay between general relativity and quantum mechanics) and on the structure of space-time at Planckian distances. The pessimistic expectations for “quantum-gravity phenomenology”111In spite of the fact that I am somewhat responsible  for the fact that the community refers to this field as “quantum-gravity phenomenology”, I now believe that this is a rather inappropriate terminology. Especially for a phenomenological (hopefully data-driven) programme it is not proper to make any a priori dogmatic assumptions about the outcome of the studies to be conducted, and the name quantum-gravity phenomenology could erroneously suggest that we have experimental evidence indicating that a relatively straightforward quantization of Einstein’s gravity is realized in Nature (while, as it is well known, there is no evidence of this type). A better name for the field would have been “Planck-length phenomenology” , reflecting the fact that its objective is the investigation of the structure of space-time at Planckian distance scales. We also do not have any robust experimental evidence of new physics occuring at those distance scales, but the question “what is the structure of space-time at Planckian distances?” is fully meaningful physically: it is in a sense operatively well defined. (Moreover, the conceptual arguments suggesting that new physical theories are required in the Planck-length regime come from several complementary lines of analysis and appear to be robust.) that are described in traditional quantum-gravity reviews basically rely on two simple observations. First one observes that the interplay of general relativity and quantum mechanics can be the dominant element in the analysis of a physical context only if this context involves strong gravitational forces and short distances. This is a condition that was realized in the early stages of evolution of the Universe, but we would not be able to realize similar conditions experimentally. The second observation is based on the fact that in the contexts that we can study experimentally, which only involve length scales much larger than the Planck length ($`L_p\sqrt{\mathrm{}G/c^3}10^{33}cm`$), all effects induced by quantum gravity would be very small. In fact, since $`L_p`$ is proportional to both the gravitational constant, $`G`$, and the Planck contant, $`\mathrm{}`$, we expect that the magnitude of these effects should be set by some power of the ratio between the Planck length and a characteristic length scale of the process under investigation.

Even without any detailed analysis of the interplay between general relativity and quantum mechanics it should be clear that these two observations cannot be sufficient for justifying the radical assumption that there is no hope for quantum-gravity phenomenology. In fact, for example, similar arguments would apply also to grandunified theories of the electroweak and strong interactions, which predict large new effects for collision processes involving particles with wavelengths of the order of $`10^{30}cm`$ (which, of course, are not available to us), but predict only very small effects for the type of processes we can access experimentally. Yet experimentalists did manage to devise experiments with very good sensitivity to grandunification predictions. The probability of proton decay in grandunification is extremely small, since it is governed by the fourth power of the ratio between the mass of the proton and the grandunification scale, but, in spite of such a strong suppression, experimentalists are managing to set significant bounds on proton decay by keeping under observation a large number of protons (so that the experiments measure the probability that one among many protons decayes).

As the analogy with proton decay in grandunification suggests, quantum-gravity phenomenology is not impossible, but it is of course extremely hard. Opportunities to test experimentally the nature of the interplay between general relativity and quantum mechanics remain extremely rare, but we have now a handful of proposals  which represent a significant step forward with respect to the expectations of not many years ago.

In this paper I focus on one of these opportunities for quantum-gravity phenomenology: the study of quantum space-time fluctuations using modern interferometers . My main objective here is the proposal of a new phenomenological approach to the description of quantum-gravity-induced interferometric noise. This approach was recently sketched out in a short non-technical paper , and here I intend to elaborate on the proposal, also discussing some of the technical points omitted in Ref. .

Since quantum-gravity phenomenology is still a relatively young research subject, I start, in the next Section, with a brief review of the status of this field. I describe the main proposals, with emphasis on one of these proposals which has recently enjoyed some success, in the sense that it provided the first ever instance of experimental data that appear to be a manifestation of Planck-scale physics. While this exciting development is not directly connected with the type of space-time-foam studies which are the main focus of this Article, it appeared appropriate to discuss it in some detail since it shows that the development of quantum-gravity phenomenology has already encountered a non-empty set (one example) of “success stories”, at least in the sense that the analysis of certain present-day experimental paradoxes does appear to invite considerations of the type that is natural in quantum-gravity phenomenology. This in turn might provide encouragement to colleagues involved in experiments relevant for my present proposal of space-time-foam studies: having found already one example in another quantum-gravity phenomenology research line, one can look with more optimism at the possibility of encountering a second example of “quantum-gravity phenomenology success story”, and perhaps this second example will emerge as we pursue the space-time-foam experimental programme here outlined.

In Section 3 I start developing my characterization of space-time foam based on distance noise. I give an operative definition of space-time foam and show that the sensitivity of modern interferometers could be sufficient for detecting distance fluctuations occurring genuinely at the Planck scale. I illustrate my point by showing that the sensitivity achieved by modern interferometers would, for example, be sufficient for detecting the distance-noise level that corresponds to quantum fluctuations of the length of the arms of the interferometer (of a few kilometers!) that are only of Planck-length magnitude and occur with a frequency of one per Planck time.

In Section 4 I observe that (having established in Section 3 that modern interferometers are potentially relevant for quantum-gravity studies) it would now be necessary for the various theoretical approaches to the quantum-gravity problem to provide to the experimentalists detailed models of the noise to be expected in interferometers, but I also argue that the development of these theoretical approaches is still too preliminary for such “physical” predictions. As a way to by-pass this limitation of quantum-gravity theories, I then propose a new phenomenological approach that describes directly quantum-gravity-induced distance noise. My task is partly facilitated by the fact that in order to guide interferometric studies of foam it is only necessary to estimate a relatively simple (single-variable) function: the power spectrum of the distance noise . The quantum-gravity-induced strain noise should depend only on its variable argument, the frequency $`f`$ at which observations are made, on the Planck length, on the speed-of-light constant $`c`$ ($`c310^8m/s`$), and, perhaps, on a length scale characterizing the properties of the apparatus with respect to quantum gravity. I find that within this conceptual framework there is a compellingly-simple candidate for a foam-induced “white noise” (noise with constant, $`f`$-independent, power spectrum). More generally, I show that upon adopting a given qualitative description of quantum distance fluctuations (e.g., “white noise”, “$`f^1`$ noise”, “random-walk $`f^2`$ noise”….) one already has a lot of information on distance noise, because dimensional analysis constrains very strongly the structure of the noise spectrum. This leads me to consider a few natural candidates for a phenomenological dscription of quantum-gravity-induced distance noise, and, surprisingly, I find that over the next few years experiments will put under scrutiny quite a few of these candidates.

In Section 5 I discuss some urgent theory issues which could benefit the development of the phenomenological approach here proposed. The main point made in Section 4 is that the information on distance noise needed by experimentalists is such that with only a few qualitative guidelines from theory one can develop rather powerful phenomenological models. However, the guidelines we can extract presently from quantum-gravity theories are very limited. In Section 5 I describe a sort of “wish list” describing the type of guidelines that my new phenomenological approach most urgently needs from theory. One important bit of qualitative information concerns the structure of the limiting procedure, which of course must be present in quantum gravity, by which a quantum space-time approaches its corresponding classical space-time. The outlook of model-building for distance noise would be affected strongly by results indicating, for example, that this classical-limit procedure must involve in some way the ratio of the wavelengths of the particles versus the Planck length (as one would expect in pictures in which the same space-time appears to be “quantum” to particles of very short wavelength and appears to bee classical to particles of very large wavelength, which basically average over the short-distance structure of space-time). Another important theory issue concerns the role of energy considerations in quantum gravity. While energy considerations are rather elementary when the analysis is supported by a fixed background space-time, the fact that quantum gravity cannot a priori rely on a background space-time renders energy considerations much more subtle . If however theoretical analyses eventually develop that capability of providing some (even partial) information on the role of energy considerations in quantum gravity, the phenomenological approach I am proposing would acquire a very powerful tool for discriminating between different distance-noise models.

After the description of a “wish list for theory” given in Section 5, in Section 6 I outline a sort of “wish list for experiments”, emphasizing some key points that experimentalists planning to contribute to this research programme should take into account.

Finally Section 7 is devoted to some closing remarks.

## 2 Status of quantum-gravity phenomenology

As mentioned, we finally have some, although still very few, research lines attempting to gain experimental information on the interplay between quantum mechanics and general relativity. Let us denominate “quantum gravity” the, still unknown, theory that describes this interplay. There are clearly two qualitatively different features that one can expect in quantum gravity: (i) the presence of new particles (e.g. the graviton) (ii) the presence of completely new phenomena , not describable in terms of the propagation of a particle in a background space-time, related with the non-classicality of space-time. For short I’ll refer to (i) as “particle-like effects” or “new particles propagating in a classical background space-time” and to (ii) as “non-particle-like effects” or simply “genuinely quantum space-time”.

Of course the most exciting class of quantum-gravity phenomena are the ones involving “non-particle-like effects”, the ones related to the emergence of profoundly non-classical (possibly quantum) properties of space-time, such as noncommutativity, dicreteness, topology fluctuations…. General arguments  as well as specific proposals based on space-time discreteness or noncommutativity  provide motivation for the exploration of this “non-particle” possibility. I start this short review from those experiments which might provide opportunities to uncover this profoundly new realm of physics.

For what concerns the development of a corresponding phenomenological program the most promising opportunities for the exploration of the possibility of genuinely quantum space-times come from contexts in which there is no (classical) curvature. If the interplay between general relativity and quantum mechanics requires that at a fundamental level space-time is not classical, then this should in particular be true for the space-times that are perceived by our low-energy probes as flat and classical. A space-time that appears to be Minkowski when probed by low-energy probes, would be perceived as “quasi-Minkowski”  (some appropriate “quantum deformation” of Minkowski space-time) by probes of higher energies. \[An example of such space-times has been discussed in Ref.  and references therein.\]

One of the effects that could characterize a quasi-Minkowski space-time are quantum fluctuations of distances. These are the focus of the present Article and will be discussed in detail in the following Sections. Modern interferometers will be shown to provide exciting opportunities to search for these distance fluctuations, extending the preliminary indications of previous works on this subject .

Another important property of quasi-Minkowski space-times is that the symmetries that characterize a deformation of Minkowski space-time are of course a deformed version (deformed algebras) of the symmetries of Minkowski space-time. This is extremely clear in the case of certain noncommutative space-times  whose symmetries are properly described by Hopf algebras (e.g. the $`\kappa `$-Poincaré Hopf algebra, which reproduces the ordinary Poincaré algebra only in the low-energy limit). The realization that quantum gravity might lead to deformed symmetries has led to renewed interest in certain symmetry tests, as indirect tests of the short-distance structure of space-time.

In particle physics the symmetries of Minkowski space-time lead to the emergence of CPT symmetry. CPT tests have been discussed in relation with quantum gravity for more than 15 years . The present upper limits on violations of CPT symmetry (see, e.g., Ref. ) have reached a level which is significant for the study of the structure of space-time at Planckian distances. This is basically due to the fact that limits on the neutral-kaon “$`\delta M_{K^0}/M_{K^0}`$”, one of the CPT-violation parameters that can be introduced in the analysis of the neutral-kaon system, have reached the level $`\delta M_{K^0}/M_{K^0}<10^{19}L_pM_{K^0}`$.

There are two classes of sensitive tests of certain types of deformations of Lorentz invariance that could be induced  by non-trivial structure of space-time at Planckian distances. One class of studies is based  on the fact that observations of the gamma rays we receive from distant astrophysical sources allow to establish that there is no anomalous effect (within the achieved experimental accuracy) leading to relative delays between the times of arrival of simultaneously emitted photons. The fact that these tests can be significant for quantum gravity follows  from the fact that the time-delay sensitivity $`\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ of the relevant experiments is remarkably small as compared to the overall duration $`T`$ of the journey that the relevant particles make from their far away astrophysical emission point to the Earth: $`\mathrm{\Delta }T/T10^{21}L_pE`$, where $`E`$ is the energy of the particle. A second class of tests of deformations of Lorentz invariance is based  on the fact that a deformation of Lorentz symmetries would of course affect our estimates of the threshold energies required for certain particle-production processes (those thresholds are basically kinematical). Recent experimental results concerning this second class of Lorentz-symmetry tests have led to some excitement. In two energy regimes, photons around 10 TeV and cosmic rays around $`10^{20}eV`$, certain puzzling data admit interpretation as a manifestation of a departure from ordinary Lorentz invariance . As I shall emphasize again in Section 6, the way in which these exciting results on “threshold anomalies”  have emerged can provide encouragement for other quantum-gravity-phenomenology studies.

These four experimental programmes, the space-time-foam studies proposed in Ref. , the CPT tests proposed in Ref. , the time-of-flight Lorentz-invariance tests proposed in Ref.  and the threshold-energy Lorentz-invariance tests described in Ref.  (extending preliminary observations reported in Refs. ) are all we have at present as opportunities to explore experimentally effects associated with genuinely quantum space-times. The objective of quantum-gravity phenomenology, as defined earlier in this Article, is however even more general: one is hoping to gain insight on all aspects of the interplay between general relativity and quantum mechanics is of interest. In this perspective there are at least two more classes of observations which should be mentioned in this review Section. The proposal put forward in Ref.  concerns possible tests (again using interferometers, but in a way that is different from the one discussed in the present Article) of the residual traces of some strong quantum-gravity effects (specifically string-theory effects ) which might have occurred in the early Universe. The quantum-gravity effects considered in Ref.  are not of the type here defined as “effects due to a genuinely quantum space-time”, since these effects basically amount to the introduction of new particles (the gravitons) in a classical background space-time.

Some information on the behaviour of quantum mechanics in presence of strong (but classical) gravitational fields has been obtained in studies of the quantum phases induced by large gravitational fields . These experiments explore a very special regime of quantum gravity, the one in which the space-time aspects of the problem can be analyzed within classical physics. All aspects of space-time are treated classically (one does not even introduce some new particles, e.g. the gravitons, with space-time degrees of freedom) but these experiments have provided  some insight on the role that the Equivalence Principle should have in quantum gravity.

## 3 Planck-scale distance fluctuations could be detected by modern interferometers

Having briefly reviewed, in the preceding Section, the overall status of quantum-gravity phenomenology, I now focus my attention on the role that interferometers (and other types of detectors, such as resonant bars) could have in the study of quantum-gravity-induced distance fluctuations.

A prediction of nearly all approaches to the unification of general relativity and quantum mechanics is that at very short distances the sharp classical concept of space-time should give way to a somewhat “fuzzy” (or “foamy”) picture (see, e.g., Refs. ), but these new concepts are usually only discussed at a rather formal level. If we are to test this prediction we must define space-time fuzziness in physically meaningful (operative) terms. Interferometers are the best tools for monitoring the distance between test masses, and I propose as operative definition of the distance fluctuations that could be induced by quantum gravity one which is expressed directly in terms of strain noise in interferometers.222Since modern interferometers were planned to look for classical gravity waves (gravity waves are their sought “signal”), it is reasonable to denominate as “noise” all test-mass-distance fluctuations that are not due to gravity waves. I choose to adopt this terminology which reflects the original objectives of modern interferometers, even though this terminology is somewhat awkward for the type of studies I am proposing in which interferometers would be used for searches of quantum-gravity-induced distance fluctuations (and therefore in these studies quantum-gravity-induced distance fluctuations would play the role of “signal”). In achieving their remarkable accuracy modern interferometers must deal with several classical-physics strain noise sources (e.g., thermal and seismic effects induce fluctuations in the relative positions of the test masses). Importantly, strain noise sources associated with effects of ordinary quantum mechanics are also significant for modern interferometers: the combined minimization of photon shot noise and radiation pressure noise leads to a noise source which originates from ordinary quantum mechanics . The operative definition of fuzzy distance which I advocate characterizes the corresponding quantum-gravity effects as an additional source of strain noise. A theory in which the concept of distance is fundamentally fuzzy in this operative sense would be such that the read-out of an interferometer would still be noisy (because of quantum-gravity effects) even in the idealized limit in which all classical-physics and ordinary-quantum-mechanics noise sources are completely eliminated. Just like the quantum properties of the non-gravitational degrees of freedom of the apparatus induce noise (e.g. the mentioned combination of photon shot noise and radiation pressure noise) it is of course plausible that noise be induced by the quantum properties of the gravitational degrees of freedom of the apparatus (e.g. the distances between the test masses).

Another simple way to discuss this operative definition of distance fuzziness is the following. Let us assume that we have established experimentally the exact dependence on all relevant physical observables of the total noise present in an interferometer. The resulting strain noise spectrum will include terms that are independent of both the Planck constant $`\mathrm{}`$ and the gravitational constant $`G`$, terms that depend either on $`\mathrm{}`$ or on $`G`$, and there could also be terms that depend on both $`\mathrm{}`$ and $`G`$. This last class of contributions to noise, depending on both $`\mathrm{}`$ and $`G`$ (possibly on the particular combination of $`\mathrm{}`$ and $`G`$ given by the Planck length $`L_p`$), is here being defined as the quantum-gravity contribution to noise.

This operative definition of quantum-gravity-induced distance noise immediately confronts us with a potentially serious challenge, which is the central challenge of all quantum-gravity-phenomenology research lines: if indeed quantum-gravity effects are proportional to (some power of) the Planck length $`L_p`$, the smallness of $`L_p`$ will authomatically lead to very small effects. However, modern interferometers have a truly remarkable sensitivity to distance fluctuations and it is actually not difficult to realize that this sensitivity is potentially significant for the detection of fluctuations occurring genuinely at the Planck scale. In order to support this observation with a simple intuitive argument let us consider the possibility that the distances $`L`$ betweeen the test masses of an interferometer be affected by Planck-length fluctuations of random-walk type occurring at a rate of one per Planck time ($`10^{44}s`$). It is easy to show  that such fluctuations would induce strain noise with power spectrum given by $`L_pcL^2f^2`$. For $`f100Hz`$ and $`L1Km`$ (as for some modern interferometers) this corresponds to strain noise at the level $`10^{37}Hz^1`$, well within the reach of the sensitivity of modern interferometers.

Fluctuations genuinely at the Planck scale (the simple scheme I used to illustrate my point involves Planck-length fluctuations occurring at a rate of one per Planck time) can lead to an effect that, while being very small in absolute terms, is large enough for testing with modern interferometers. This originates from the fact that random-walk fluctuations do not fully average out. They have zero mean (in this sense they do average out) but the associated standard deviation grows with the time of observation (with the random-walk-characteristic $`\sqrt{t}`$ dependence which translates  into the $`f^2`$ dependence of the power spectrum). A reasonable scale to characterize the time of observation in interferometry is provided by $`f^1`$ which, for $`f100Hz`$, is much larger than the Planck time. \[$`(100Hz)^1/10^{44}s10^{40}`$ and therefore over a time of order $`(100Hz)^1`$ the standard deviation can become much greater than the Planck length.\]

## 4 Phenomenological description of space-time foam and the sensitivity of planned experiments

The example of random-walk fluctuations is quite interesting since various quantum-gravity scenarios have random-walk elements . However, the random-walk case was here analyzed only as an example in which the classical space-time picture breaks down on distance scales of order $`L_p10^{35}m`$, but the nature of this breaking is such that an interefometer working at a few hundred $`Hz`$ is sensitive to a collective effect of a very large number of minute fluctuations.333Here the analogy with the strategy adopted in proton-decay experiments is very direct. It may well be that the fluctuations induced by quantum gravity are not of random-walk type, but it appears that interferometers (and possibly resonant-bar detectors) should have significant sensitivity to various scenarios in which the fluctuations average out only in the sense of the mean and not in the sense of the standard deviation.

Having established that it is not preposterous to hope that modern interferometers might have the capability to detect quantum-gravity-induced distance fluctuations, it is now important for theorists to provide to the experimentalists a detailed description of the fluctuations. Unfortunately, the scarcity of experimental information on the quantum-gravity realm has not yet allowed a proper “selection process”, so there are a large number of quantum-gravity candidates. Moreover, even the two approaches whose mathematical/logical consistency has been already explored in some depth, the one based on “critical superstrings”  and the one based on “canonical/loop quantum gravity” , have not yet matured a satisfactory understanding of their physical implications, such as the properties of space-time foam. In the few phenomenological programmes investigating other quantum properties of space-time  the difficulties deriving from the preliminary status of quantum-gravity theories have been circumvented by developing direct phenomenological descriptions of the relevant phenomena. I propose to apply the same strategy to the description of the noise induced in interferometers by quantum gravity.

As mentioned in Section 1, my task is partly facilitated by the fact that in order to guide interferometric studies of foam it is only necessary to estimate a relatively simple (single-variable) function: the power spectrum $`\rho _h(f)`$ of the strain444Strain here has the standard engineering definition $`h\mathrm{\Delta }L/L`$ in terms of the displacement $`\mathrm{\Delta }L`$ in a given distance $`L`$. noise . In fact, the strain noise power spectrum, through its dependence on the frequency $`f`$ at which observations are performed, contains the most significant information on the distance fluctuations, such as the mean square deviation (which is given by the integral of the power spectrum over the bandwidth of operation of the detector), and is the quantity against which the observations are compared.

The quantum-gravity-induced strain noise should depend only on the Planck length, the speed-of-light constant $`c`$ ($`c310^8m/s`$), and, perhaps, a length scale characterizing the properties of the apparatus with respect to quantum gravity. This renders dimensional-analysis arguments rather powerful: if the analysis of a given quantum-gravity approach allowed at least the identification of the qualitative nature of the distance fluctuations (e.g., random walk) then quite a lot of guidance could be provided to experimentalists using simple dimensional arguments. This is the central point being made in this Article and it will be illustrated in a few examples relevant for quantum gravity, also showing that in these examples the sensitivity of planned interferometers can be significant.

The first qualitative picture that I want to analyze dimensionally is one in which the foam-induced noise is white (noise with constant, $`f`$-independent, power spectrum). White noise is to be expected whenever  the relevant stochastic phenomena are such that there is no correlation between one fluctuation and the next, an hypothesis which appears to be rather plausible for the case of foam-induced distance fluctuations. The hypothesis that foam-induced noise be white is also consistent with the intuition emerging from analogies  between thermal environments and the environment provided by foam as a (dynamical) arena for physical processes. According to these studies one can see foam-induced noise as essentially analogous to thermal noise in various physical contexts (such as electric circuits), which is indeed white whenever the bandwidth of interest is below some characteristic (resonant) frequency. In the case of foam-induced noise the characteristic frequency (which should be somewhere in the neighborhood of the quantum-gravity frequency scale $`c/L_p`$) would be much higher than the frequencies of operation of our interferometers, and foam noise would be white at those frequencies.

Within a white-noise model, by observing that the strain noise power spectrum carries dimensions of $`Hz^1`$, one is naturally led to the estimate

$$\rho _h(f)=\mathrm{constant}\frac{L_p}{c}510^{44}Hz^1.$$
(1)
I also observe that, since, as mentioned, the frequencies we can access experimentally are much smaller than $`c/L_p`$, white noise is actually the only admissable structure for foam-induced strain noise within the hypothesis that this noise be independent of the characteristics of the apparatus which is used as a space-time probe. In fact this hypothesis implies that $`\rho _h`$ can only depend on its argument $`f`$, on the Planck length and on the speed-of-light constant, and therefore the most general low-frequency expansion is of the type

$$\rho _h(f)=a_0\frac{L_p}{c}+a_1\left(\frac{L_p}{c}\right)^2f+a_2\left(\frac{L_p}{c}\right)^3f^2+\mathrm{}$$
(2)
where the $`a_i`$ are numerical coefficients and all monomials of the type $`f^{|n|}`$ were not included in the expansion because they would require coefficients of the type $`L_p^{|n|+1}`$ (which are inconsistent with the fact that quantum-gravity effects must disappear in the limit $`L_p0`$). For $`fc/L_p`$ the expansion (2) is well approximated by its first term, which corresponds to the dimensional estimate (1). From the point of view of experimental tests it is also important to consider the value of the coefficient $`a_0`$, i.e. to take into account the inherent uncertainty associated with the dimensional estimate (1). In this type of studies based on dimensional analysis, the natural guess, which often turns out to be correct, is that coefficients such as $`a_0`$ are of order 1, but it is not uncommon to find a disagreement between the dimensional estimate and the experimental result of a few orders of magnitude. In testing (1) we shall therefore be looking for sensitivities extending a few orders of magnitude below the $`L_p/c`$ level.

Since it does not involve any explicit dependence on the structure of the apparatus being used to probe space-time, the estimate (1) can be tested using any detector with sensitivity to distance strain, such as interferometers and resonant-bar detectors. Remarkably, in spite of the smallness of the effects predicted, these types of experiments are reaching such a high level of sensitivity that (1) is going to be completely tested within a few years.

Denoting with $`\rho _h^{TOT}`$ the total strain noise power spectrum observed by the experiments, the present level of interferometric data is best characterized by the results obtained by the 40-meter interferometer  at Caltech and the TAMA interferometer  at the Mitaka campus of the Japanese National Astronomical Observatory, both reaching $`\rho _h^{TOT}`$ of order $`10^{40}Hz^1`$ (the lowest level has been achieved by TAMA around 1$`kHz`$: $`\rho _h^{TOT}310^{41}Hz^1`$). Even more remarkable is the present sensitivity $`\rho _h^{TOT}510^{43}Hz^1`$ of resonant-bar detectors such as NAUTILUS  (which achieved it near $`924Hz`$). This is already quite close to the estimate $`L_p/c`$ of (1). We are already probing a potentially interesting region and in order to complete a satisfactory test of the estimate (1) we only need to improve the sensitivity by a few orders of magnitude (in order to exclude also the possibility that the coefficient $`a_0`$ be somewhat smaller than 1).

This will be accomplished in the near future. Planned upgrades of the NAUTILUS resonant-bar detector are expected  to reach sensitivity at the level $`710^{45}Hz^1`$. The LIGO/VIRGO generation of interferometers  should achieve sensitivity of the order of $`10^{44}Hz^1`$ within a year or two, during its first phase of operation. A few years later, with the space interferometer LISA  and especially with the “advanced phase”  of the LIGO/VIRGO interferometers, another significant sensitivity improvement should be achieved: according to recent estimates  it should be possible to reach sensitivity levels in the neighborhood of $`10^{48}Hz^1`$, more than four orders of magnitude below the $`L_p/c`$ estimate!

This expected experimental progress is described in the figure together with the $`L_p/c`$ white-noise level and the analogous noise-level estimates that can be obtained by assuming instead that the foam-induced noise be of “random-walk” type (i.e. with $`f^2`$ frequency dependence of the power spectrum ). Through the example of random-walk noise the figure shows that the sensitivity of modern interferometers is significant also with respect to non-white models of foam-induced noise. In the case in which the foam-induced distance fluctuations are of random-walk type, the corresponding strain noise should necessarily depend on some experiment-characteristic length scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ (differently from the case of $`L_p`$-linear white noise). In fact, if random-walk noise depended only on $`f`$, $`c`$, and $`L_p`$, the strain-noise spectrum would have to be of the type $`\rho _hcL_p^1f^2`$, in contradiction with the fact that any Planck-scale effect should vanish in the limit $`L_p0`$. A model with random-walk strain noise linearly suppressed by the Planck length would have to predict a power spectrum of the form $`\rho _hcL_pf^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$. Our capability to test such a model is to be described with the range of values of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ which we can exclude. As shown in the figure, for the $`L_p`$-linear random-walk-noise model the excluded range of values of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ extends all the way up to values of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ of the order of the length of the arms of the interferometer. In the random-walk case we will soon even reach some sensitivity to models with effects quadratically suppressed by the Planck length; in fact, as shown in the figure, the LISA interferometer  will be able to test the possibility of noise levels of the type $`\rho _hcL_p^2f^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^3`$, at least in the case in which the scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is identified with the wavelength of the beam used by LISA (which is, however, one of the smallest length scale that characterize the experimental setup of LISA). Since other quantum-gravity-motivated experimental programmes can only achieve sensitivity to effects linear in the Planck length , LISA’s capability to reach some level of “$`L_p^2`$ sensitivity” will mark the beginning of another significant phase in the search of quantum properties of space-time.

Having already discussed the possibility of white noise and random-walk noise, let us consider just one more significant candidate: “$`f^1`$ noise”. It is in fact quite common in other noisy physical contexts to find a noise contribution with $`f^1`$ spectrum, and it appears reasonable at this early stage of analysis to consider the possibility that also quantum-gravity-induced strain noise might have this characteristic behaviour. Actually, some studies reported in Refs.  appear to provide preliminary evidence of the possibility that a minimum ingredient of quantum gravity is sufficient for generating $`f^1`$ noise. In fact, I interpret the results obtained in Refs.  as an indication that the minimum  of distance fluctuations one would aspect in a quantum-gravity theory, the fluctuations induced by the presence of gravitons, is characterized by $`f^1`$ noise. Graviton effects would lead to $`f^1`$ noise which is quadratically suppressed by the Planck length ($`\rho _hL_p^2f^1\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$), and this is beyond the reach of forthcoming experiments, unless the characteristic scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is to be identified with a rather short length (e.g., the wavelength of the beam used in the interferometer).

Examples of $`f^1`$ noise are not reported in the figure (in order to maitain the number of lines in the figure to a level that allows easy consultation); however, the careful reader should realize that the structure of $`f^1`$ noise is somewhat intermediate between the case of white ($`f^0`$) noise and random-walk ($`f^2`$) noise. It is therefore relatively straightforward to deduce from the information provided in the figure, and from the type of dimensional-analysis considerations I reported above for white and random-walk noise, that forthcoming experiments also have good sensitivity to some plausible candidates of foam-induced $`f^1`$ noise.

## 5 Some relevant issues for theoretical physics

The main point of this Article, discussed in the preceding Section (extending the analysis already reported in Ref. ), is that the phenomenology of quantum-gravity-induced distance fluctuations can be quite effective starting from very simple qualitative information on the nature of the fluctuations. The two key ingredients are: (a) the general picture of the fluctuation mechanism, and (b) the value of an experiment-characteristic length scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Since at present even this qualitative information is not available in the various approaches to quantum gravity, in the preceding Section I considered 3 plausible scenarios for ingredient (a) (white noise, random-walk noise and $`f^1`$ noise) and 2 plausible values of the scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ (the length of the arms of the interferometer and the wavelength of the beam). The number of scenarios to be considered will of course be sharply reduced as soon as some clear theory indications on the ingredients (a) and (b) are obtained.

While waiting for some quantum-gravity approaches to reach this type of capability, we can at least attempt to establish whether a given quantum-gravity approach would support some of the hypothesis for the experiment-characteristic length scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Two clear candidates are the length $`L`$ of the arms of the interferometer and the wavelength $`\lambda _0`$ of the beam, but there are several other length scales that characterize and interferometer, and, even focusing only on $`L`$ and $`\lambda _0`$, it cannot be a priori excluded that the value of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ (rather than being one of the simple options $`\mathrm{\Lambda }L`$ or $`\mathrm{\Lambda }\lambda _0`$) be given by some combination of $`L`$ and $`\lambda _0`$, e.g. $`\mathrm{\Lambda }L^2/\lambda _0`$.

It is also important to extend the analysis of the better-developed quantum-gravity approaches, with the objective of establishing whether they predict a genuinely quantum space-time, i.e. establishing whether the emerging picture of space-time requires something beyond the propagation of gravitational particles in an otherwise classical space-time. The latest results on “critical superstrings” and “loop quantum gravity” provide encouragement for the idea of a genuinely quantum space-time. These results suggest that at the quantum level space-time has some elements of discreteness and/or noncommutativity , and it appears unlikely that these features could be faithfully described by the propagation of some new particles in an otherwise classical space-time (continuous and commutative, and such that there is no preferred frame for its description).

Another issue which could be discussed already at the qualitative level concerns the key point of the discussion in the preceding Section: could space-time fluctuations be of a type that averages out only in the sense of the mean and not in the sense of the standard deviation? The mentioned quantum-gravity scenarios with some random-walk elements  provide encouragement for this possibility, but more work is needed, especially in order to develop suitable effective theories.555In the formalisms we ordinarily consider, such as the one of field theory, effects on very short distances do not leave any trace on larger scales. This is a key aspect of the renormalization procedure and of certain types of coarse graining. For the fluctuations here considered this should correspond to the requirement that the mean vanishes and the standard deviation does not grow with time.

One more point that deserves mention is the one concerning whether or not there are some “energy constraints” that could be imposed on the structure of the quantum-gravity-induced interferometric noise. Energy considerations are clearly non-trivial in quantum gravity (and general relativity) because one should not rely on a given background space-time. Effects describable in terms of particle propagation (e.g., graviton propagation) in a given background space-time can be easily analyzed from the point of view of energy considerations, but, as mentioned, it appears likely  that quantum gravity would predict also effects that cannot be described in terms of particle propagation in a given background space-time. For this second class of effects energy considerations are highly nontrivial, for example it is easy to conceive  space-time fluctuations that effectively “carry” negative energy. For pictures of space-time fluctuations that “carry” positive energy a strong constraint comes from the requirement not to overclose the Universe, a requirement which can be formalized through the formula

$$\frac{\rho _{gw}}{\rho _c}\frac{10^{36}}{h_0^2}_{f_{min}}^{f_{max}}𝑑f\left(\frac{f}{1Hz}\right)^2\rho _h(f),$$
(3)
where $`\rho _{gw}`$ is the energy density of the stochastic background of gravity waves, $`\rho _c`$ is the value of the critical energy density for closing the Universe, and $`h_0`$ is a parameter which at present we can only constrain to the interval $`0.50<h_0<0.85`$ (reflecting the experimental uncertainty in the Hubble constant).

Among the phenomenological models considered in the preceding Section, this requirement can be applied straightforwardly only to the one in which $`f^1`$ noise originates from the properties of gravitons (which indeed are effects associated with the propation of new particles in a classical background space-time). It is easy to see that the fact that $`f^1`$ noise tends quickly to $`0`$ at high frequencies leads to authomatic compliance with the requirement. For the other scenarios considered in the preceding Section, which should not be associated with particle propagation in a background space-time, it is not clear whether one should be allowed to enforce analogous energy requirements. In addition to the mentioned fact that energy considerations become highly nontrivial when there is no background space-time, these requirements must also be treated prudently because the proper way to understand quantum noise in interferometers is that this noise is a property of the apparatus666Interferometric noise is always correctly understood as a property of the interferometer with respect to the relevant physical processes. This is true  of the well-understood noise sources originating from classical-physics phenomena (e.g., thermal effects) and from phenomena of ordinary (non-gravitational) quantum mechanics (the mentioned combination of photon shot noise and radiation pressure noise), and it is here naturally assumed to be true of the possible contribution to noise resulting from quantum properties of space-time. (not a property of “empty” space), and therefore it is plausible that bounds based on energy considerations should involve some estimate of the energy that the fluctuations carry locally at the lab site (rather than considering some integration over the whole Universe).

The understanding of these delicate issues is however very important for the development of the phenomenological approach here advocated. It would not affect models with noise that decreases rapidly at high frequencies (just like in the case of $`f^1`$ noise, also random-walk noise complies authomatically with requirements of the type (3)), but significant constraints could emerge (if at all applicable) for models in which there is no sharp decrease at high frequencies, such as the white-noise model.

## 6 Key challenges for the experimental programme

As for the other research lines of quantum-gravity phenomenology, these preliminary analyses of quantum-gravity-induced distance fluctuations (and the associated strain noise) should be interpreted as an invitation to experimentalists to keep a vigilant eye on possible anomalies that could be interpreted as manifestions of the Planck-scale-structure of space-time. Quantum-gravity models are not yet ready for making definite predictions, but one can examine some qualitative aspects of a candidate new phenomenon and then make dimensional-analysis considerations in order to establish whether relevant experiments have a chance to uncover effects originating at Planckian distances. As mentioned, at least in one case, the mentioned studies of observed threshold anomalies, the fact that experimentalists were alerted by this type of considerations has led to exciting developments , and it appears now reasonable to hope that other quantum-gravity-phenomenology research lines might stumble upon analogous experimental results.

In the case of interferometers (and resonant detectors) the task of keeping a vigilant eye on possible quantum-gravity anomalies is particularly challenging. In fact, quantum gravity motivates the search for excess noise, but excess noise of non-quantum-gravity origin is very common in these experiments. Experimentalists make a large effort of predicting all noise sources, but when the machines finally are in operation it is quite natural to find that one of the noise sources was underestimated. Upon encountering excess noise the first natural guess is that the excess be due to ordinary/conventional physics rather than new physics. In this respect one first point to be remarked is that even just the determination of upper bounds on quantum-gravity-induced noise can be valuable at this stage of development of quantum gravity. This research field has been for a long time a theoretical exploration of a territory that was completely uncharted experimentally, and it is therefore quite important that a few experiments are now providing at least some guidance in the form of upper limits naturally expressable in terms of the Planck length . Conservative upper limits on quantum-gravity-induced excess noise can be set straigthforwardly  by making conservative (lower bounds) estimates of conventional noise and observing that any quantum-gravity-induced noise could not exceed the difference between the noise observed and the corresponding conservative estimate of conventional noise.

While upper limits are important, the possibility of discovering quantum-gravity-induced noise would of course be more exciting. As mentioned, the difficulties involved in accurate predictions of noise levels of conventional origin combine with the scarse information on the structure to be expected for quantum-gravity noise in a way that renders such discoveries very problematic; however, it is worth noticing that there are certain characteristics of quantum-gravity-induced noise which could plausibly be used in order to identify it. For example, from the description given in the preceding Sections it is clear that in an interferometer quantum-gravity-induced noise might roughly look like a stochastic background of gravity waves with the important characteristic of the absence of long-distance correlations. Excess noise in the form of a stochastic background of gravity waves is predicted also by other new-physics proposals777The early-Universe quantum-gravity effects considered in Ref.  would have eventually given rise to a stochastic background of gravity waves, which presently could play the role of noise in the observation of the gravity waves produced by other astrophysical phenomena. The distance fluctuations induced by the stochastic background of gravity waves considered in Ref.  would have long distance correlations . but typically these other new-physics proposals predict long-distance correlation . This important difference could be used to distinguish experimentally between noise induced by genuinely quantum properties of space-time and other excess-noise new-physics proposals.

## 7 Closing remarks

Encouraged by the exciting developments that have recently emerged in another quantum-gravity-phenomenology research line , I have here outlined a phenomenological approach to the description of quantum-gravity-induced noise. Based on the information contained in the figure it appears that forthcoming experiments will start constraining quite severely model-building for quantum-gravity-induced noise.

These opportunities are directly associated with the fact that interferometers are preparing to reach sensitivity at or below $`10^{44}Hz^1`$ over a relatively wide (combining LIGO/VIRGO and LISA) range of frequencies. It is quite amusing to notice that experimentalists have been preparing for these sensitivity levels in response to classical-physics thoretical studies showing that the strain noise power spectrum should be reduced at or below the level $`10^{44}Hz^1`$ in certain frequency windows in order to allow the discovery of classical gravity waves. It is a remarkable numerical accident that the result of these classical-physics studies, involving several length scales such as the distance between the Earth and potential sources of gravity waves, has pointed us toward a sensitivity level which I here observed to be also naturally described in terms of the intrinsically quantum scale $`L_p/c`$.