Our Science / Gravity
Gravity from a lattice of events.
If spacetime is a lattice with a physical spacing, Einstein's gravity has to appear as the long-wavelength behaviour of the lattice's own dynamics. We test that claim directly: classically, where it holds at linear order, and at one loop, where four massless lattice modes make it fail in a stated model.
Latest result
Linearized Einstein gravity at long wavelengths, and a graviton that does not settle at one loop.
The new preprint studies a real-time sum over geometries on the Kuhn triangulation of the periodic hypercubic lattice, with the Lorentzian Regge action, at κ = 1: the value at which the edges that advance one coordinate are null, and the only one at which the lattice interval reads the order in which events are recorded on some interval of positive duration. That value is an identification throughout, not a derivation.
Classically, linearized Einstein gravity is recovered as the long-wavelength limit of lattice solutions. On every torus whose side is odd and not divisible by 105, the flat lattice has no zero modes beyond constant strains and vertex moves. The 105 is a limit of the proof, not a known failure: the proof needs the side to be prime to 3, to 5 or to 7, so the odd multiples of 105 are open, not excluded. With a resting body and a model medium, the unconstrained Regge equations on all edges have exact solutions for small coupling, and their weak-field long-wave limit gives Newton's potential, −GM/r, with G fixed by the scale of the action.
At one loop, in a stated diagram model, the quantum limit fails. Four exact massless modes sit at four corners of the Brillouin zone, and the zero-momentum anisotropy of the graviton self-energy grows like the logarithm of the inverse regulator as the regulator is removed after the volume. Every other degenerate zero of the operator contributes finitely, so nothing cancels it; the proof’s computations are exact, and programs that re-check them are deposited with the paper.
The claim, requirement by requirement
Eight requirements: the classical ones are met at linear order, the measure is open, and at one loop the graviton limit fails.
Before a real-time sum over geometries on a lattice with a physical spacing can claim Einstein gravity as its long-wavelength limit, it has to supply eight things. The paper states each one with its status: a theorem as stated, a theorem that rests on a named model or on the identification κ = 1, or open (its Table 1).
- 1ConfigurationsSections 2, 3.1Definedidentification at κ = 1
A fixed Kuhn graph with varying squared lengths and explicit causal conditions; at identified κ = 1, the null stratum on which every posting is null.
- 2Action and signSection 3.1Derivedgiven the length family
The Regge action, with its Lorentzian sign fixed by the causal range of the posting order.
- 3MeasureSection 3.6Open
Chosen, not derived. At Gaussian order its gauge behaviour and its independence of the density are theorems.
- 4A well-defined sumSection 3.2Theoremat a stated cutoff
The path sum is finite at a stated cutoff and diverges without one, so it is an effective theory at fixed spacing.
- 5Classical limitSection 4Theoremmodel mediumlinear order
Exact solutions, for small coupling, of the unconstrained Regge equations on all fifteen edge classes, on the odd sides not divisible by 105 (the odd multiples of 105 are open, a limit of the proof), whose weak-field long-wave limit is the linearized Einstein field of the source; at fixed small strength, the long-wave equations are controlled uniformly in the torus size.
- 6Source lawSections 3.5, 4Theoremmodel medium
The linearized Einstein field of the source, and Newton’s law for a compact body with G = 1/(8πs), s the scale of the action.
- 7A quantum quantitySection 7Theorem: long-wave rulesNot established: lattice path sum
For the long-wave Feynman rules, the Einstein–Hilbert rules in lattice coordinates, the one-loop two-mass amplitude has the coefficient 41/(10π) in an infrared-subtracted Born reading. At κ = 1 the corner doublers couple to the static field (theorem), and in an exact local model their pair loop carries log q2, which would add a more singular term unless the rest of the zone cancels it.
- 8A predictionSections 5, 6Theorem: tree levelNot met: one loopdiagram modelidentification at κ = 1
At tree level, no observable signature, with explicit bounds. At one loop the ordered graviton limit diverges at identified κ = 1, a theorem within the stated diagram model.
DefinedTheorem met as statedOpenNot met open, or shown to failmodel medium what a result rests on
How the result works / 01 The lattice
A cell of the lattice holds the twenty-four orders in which four counters can advance.
The vertices are the points of a four-dimensional hypercubic lattice, periodic with side N. Kuhn's rule cuts each unit cell into 24 four-simplices, one for each ordering of the four axes: the simplex of the order (a₁, a₂, a₃, a₄) runs from x through x + ea₁, x + ea₁ + ea₂ and x + ea₁ + ea₂ + ea₃ to x + (1,1,1,1). Roček and Williams began linearized Regge calculus on this triangulation. Here it carries a Lorentzian metric.
The motivation for this lattice is a reading of its coordinates. If events are records kept on four counters, each advanced one step at a time, then the orders in which the counters can go from 0000 to 1111 are exactly the simplices of a cell. A one-step edge is a posting, and the sum of a vertex's coordinates is its record time. Each simplex is a chain of four postings, and all 24 share the edge from 0000 to 1111.
The unit cell, by record time
The chosen simplex
- posting: one counter advances
- two steps
- three steps
- the time edge, four steps
Advance one counter
This simplex
0000 → 1000 → 1100 → 1110 → 1111
One of 4! = 24 orders. Its ten edges are four postings, three two-step edges, two three-step edges and the time edge from 0000 to 1111, which every simplex of the cell shares.
Built so far1 of the 24 simplices
The unit cell: sixteen vertices in rows by record time. Grey lines join vertices one posting apart, and the heavy chain is the chosen simplex. The chosen simplex: its ten edges, drawn as in Figure 1 of the paper.
A configuration is a real squared length on every edge. The graph never changes, so the path sum runs over lengths, never over triangulations. Every edge joins a vertex x to x + d for one of fifteen classes d in {0,1}4 without 0: four postings, six two-step edges, four three-step edges and the main diagonal, the time edge.
How the result works / 02 The one identification
At κ = 1 the null cone passes through the postings. That value is identified, not derived.
In lattice coordinates the flat metric is gκ = I − κ 11⊤, so the class d has squared length |d|(1 − κ|d|), where |d| counts its ones. κ is the lattice's one number. For κ above ¼ the metric is Lorentzian: it has exactly one negative eigenvalue, 1 − 4κ, and its eigenvector (1,1,1,1) is timelike. We take that direction as time. It is not the only timelike direction: every direction inside its cone is timelike too, and at κ = 1 that includes the face and body diagonals, with squared lengths −2 and −6.
Follow an event for one tick of record time. Record time counts postings, and position is the part of a step orthogonal to time, a point of the hyperplane where the coordinates sum to zero. A posting on axis a advances record time by one tick and moves the position by σa = ea − ¼(1,1,1,1), whose length is |σa| = √(1 − ½ + ¼) = √3/2 (Section 2.2). So in one tick a posting moves by √3/2, in one of four directions. The interval's future cone at one tick is a ball of radius vc = √(κ − ¼), the cone speed. Every pair in the posting order is future causal exactly when κ ≥ 1, that is, when the ball contains all four postings (Theorem 2.1). At κ = 1 the two speeds are equal and every posting is null. Only at that value does the interval read the posting order on an interval of positive duration (Theorem 2.2).
One tick after an event
- the interval's future cone, radius √(κ − ¼)
- reach of one posting, |σa| = √3/2
- Cone speed
- 0.866
- Posting reach
- 0.866
- Posting, 1 − κ
- 0
κ = 1: the postings lie on the cone and every posting is null. Only at this value does the interval read the posting order on an interval of positive duration (Theorem 2.2). Taking it as the physical value is the identification.
| Steps |d| | Classes | Squared length | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 postings | 0 | null |
| 2 | 6 | −2 | timelike |
| 3 | 4 | −6 | timelike |
| 4 | 1, the time edge | −12 | timelike |
The slice is the plane through the rest point and the postings 1000 and 0001, one tick after the event. The triangle is the posting order in that plane: its corners are the two postings and the point midway between 0100 and 0010. The open diamond is (2,2,2,−1)/5. For κ above 0.52 it is future timelike, yet no chain of postings reaches it, because it needs a negative step on 0001. The posting order is a polyhedral cone and the interval's cone is round, so no value of κ reads the order on every pair (Theorem 2.2).
That the physical interval reads the posting order on at least one interval of positive duration is the paper's identification. The definitions do not force it: every κ ≥ 1 makes the order causal. Every theorem stated at κ = 1 inherits the identification; theorems stated for all κ > ½ do not. It concerns the postings and the graviton's cone. Whether light travels on the same cone is a question about photons, which the paper does not address.
The paper says where its motivation enters: through κ, and otherwise only as the source of one candidate construction of the measure. It also uses the programme’s cost function in three models, each labelled. The rest is Lorentzian Regge calculus on the Kuhn triangulation.
Where the recognition programme enters the paper
- The lattice
- Events as records kept on four counters, each advanced one step at a time: the 24 orders in which the counters can go from 0000 to 1111 are the Kuhn simplices of a cell, which is why the triangulation is Kuhn’s (Section 2.2).
- The value of κ
- The interval reads the posting order on an interval of positive duration only at κ = 1 (Theorem 2.2). Taking that value as physical is the identification, and every result stated at κ = 1 inherits it.
- A candidate measure
- A ledger of records, developed only as far as results are proved: a measure on ledger states, lifted through a chosen section, reads as the uniform measure near the flat field and gives the posting-null exchange at Gaussian order (Section 3.6). The measure of the theorems is chosen, not derived from it.
- Units
- If as = ln 2/(2πλrec2) for a length λrec of the programme (a model), then Gℏ = λrec2/(4 ln 2). That fixes Gℏ, not G; it is a consistency of definitions, and no result uses it (Section 3.5).
- The recognition cost
- J(x) = ½(x + x−1) − 1 appears in three labelled roles. As the cost of the matter medium, paid on each timelike edge’s proper-time ratio, it is again a rest-length spring (an identification, Section 4.12). As the least-work equation of state of a posting gas, it lets the gas replace the medium on the long-wave rows at fixed strength (an identification, Appendix E). As an on-site measure weight it makes every exchange decay exponentially with distance, a mass for every mode, the long-wave graviton included (Theorem 6.11), and it adds to the long-wave remainder instead of cancelling it (Proposition 6.20).
How the result works / 03 Long waves
Long waves travel on the light cone. Short waves show the lattice.
The dynamics is Regge’s action, S(ℓ) = Σ Ah(2π/nh − θσ,h), summed over every pair of a Kuhn simplex σ and one of its ten triangles h: Ah is the area of the timelike triangle, θσ,h the dihedral angle of σ at h, and nh the number of simplices that share h. The path-sum weight is eiaS, with no Wick rotation. The Lorentzian sign is not inserted separately: within the length family |d|(1 − κ|d|) the causal range forces κ ≥ 1 (Theorem 2.1), and every κ > ¼ makes the metric Lorentzian, with exactly one negative eigenvalue. At the flat κ = 1 lattice the Hessian of one simplex is C/(16√3), with C a 10 × 10 integer matrix printed in Appendix B, when each simplex takes its own flat dihedral angle as its share of 2π at a triangle; with the equal share 2π/nh the simplex Hessians differ on three pairs of edges by terms that cancel at every triangle, so the lattice operator is the same. Summed over the 24 simplices of a cell with Bloch phases, it gives the operator whose zero modes are the waves below.
What the path sum is
- Configurations
- A real squared length on each of the 15N4 edges of the side-N torus; the graph never changes. A configuration is admissible when every simplex is timelike in all its faces, every edge of two or more postings is timelike, and every posting has a squared length of the sign of 1 − κ (Section 3.1).
- At identified κ = 1
- The configurations form the null stratum: every posting has squared length 0. It has measure zero among all fields; its natural measure is Haar measure on the posting-null subspace.
- Weight
- eiaS, with a the phase scale. The action is homogeneous of degree one, S(cℓ) = cS(ℓ) for c ≥ 0, so along every ray cℓ the phase is linear in c.
- Measure
- Chosen, not derived. At Gaussian order its gauge behaviour and its independence of the density are theorems; a derived measure, its regulator limit ε → 0+ after N → ∞, refinement of the spacing and anything beyond Gaussian order are open (Section 3.6).
- Cutoff
- With every |ℓe| ≤ L, for L above the flat field, the sum is finite, and Z(a) ≠ 0 when |a| CNL < π/2, with CN = 120√13 πN4 (Theorem 3.1). Without a cutoff it diverges, since the phase is linear along every ray: the path sum is an effective theory at fixed spacing. The window is small: at the phase scale a = ln 2/(2π) of the phase premise of Section 3.5, at unit action scale, aCNL exceeds 103N4, and whether Z ≠ 0 there is not decided.
- Gaussian order
- With a fluctuation scale t → 0+ and a damping ε > 0 kept explicit, the normalized moments on a retained set R of edges converge to (ε − iaAR)−1, with AR the flat Hessian restricted to R. As ε → 0+ the exchange of a source j = ARu tends to (i/a) j⋅u, which in the units of Section 3.5, i/(as) = 8πiGℏ, is the gauge-invariant tree-level exchange of linearized gravity (Theorem 3.2). Which retained set is physical is a separate question: on the twisted slice, a complete gauge slice, every conserved source with a solution on all edges has this exchange, while on the side-3 torus the posting-null exchange of one such source does not (Theorem 3.3).
The matrix C of Appendix B
| 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 23 | 24 | 34 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 2 | −2 | 1 | · | · | 3 | −2 | −6 | 2 | 2 |
| 02 | −2 | −4 | 4 | −1 | 6 | −6 | 2 | 3 | −2 | 2 |
| 03 | 1 | 4 | · | −2 | −6 | · | 2 | −3 | 2 | −2 |
| 04 | · | −1 | −2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | −2 | 2 | −1 | · |
| 12 | · | 6 | −6 | 2 | −6 | 6 | −3 | · | 3 | −6 |
| 13 | 3 | −6 | · | 2 | 6 | · | · | 6 | −6 | 3 |
| 14 | −2 | 2 | 2 | −2 | −3 | · | · | −6 | 4 | 1 |
| 23 | −6 | 3 | −3 | 2 | · | 6 | −6 | −6 | 6 | · |
| 24 | 2 | −2 | 2 | −1 | 3 | −6 | 4 | 6 | −4 | −2 |
| 34 | 2 | 2 | −2 | · | −6 | 3 | 1 | · | −2 | 2 |
The ten edges of a simplex are named by their end points along the chain 0 < 1 < 2 < 3 < 4, so edge ij takes j − i steps. The flat squared lengths of the simplex, (0, −2, −6, −12, 0, −2, −6, 0, −2, 0) in this order, lie in the kernel of C, as homogeneity of degree one requires. A dot is a zero. The program regge_action.py, listed with the backgrounds of section 06, recovers C from the areas and dihedral angles of the action.
The spacing b of the lattice is physical, and shrinking it at fixed combinatorics would not help: rescaling every squared length rescales the Regge action and leaves its stationary points where they were. So the limit in which Einstein's theory should appear is a long-wavelength limit, with waves spread over many spacings of a lattice that stays put. The first test is the free waves of the flat lattice. Do they travel on the light cone?
They do, in every direction, up to a relative correction of order (kphb)2, where kph is the physical wave number (Theorem 5.1, Corollary 5.2). Near the origin of the Brillouin zone there is no slow branch, no fast branch and no extra low-frequency mode. One direction can be solved exactly. Along the paired covector u = (z+t, z+t, z−t, z−t) the wave number is |k| = 2t, the frequency is ω = 2z/√3, and each polarization satisfies a printed polynomial equation (Appendix F). The figure plots both.
Frequency against wave number
Phase speed near the origin
- light cone
- plus
- cross
- exact leading term, Theorem 5.5
- Plus ω
- 0.327
- Plus speed
- 0.819
- Cross ω
- 0.416
- Cross speed
- 1.040
Both curves are exact zero sets of the plus- and cross-sector equations of Appendix F, in lattice units. Near the cone the paper identifies them as the plus and cross polarizations (Theorem 5.5): their phase speeds are 1 − (59/24)|k|2 and 1 + (5/24)|k|2 at leading order. The cross curve turns back at |k| = 0.680, where z = π/4; the plus curve reaches ω = 0 at |k| = 2.526. Other zero modes along this direction, which do not reach the origin, are not drawn. Away from the origin the operator also has massless modes at four corners of the zone; they matter at one loop, not here.
Values at selected wave numbers
| |k| | plus ω | plus speed | cross ω | cross speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.01 | 0.0100 | 0.9998 | 0.0100 | 1.0000 |
| 0.05 | 0.0497 | 0.9940 | 0.0500 | 1.0005 |
| 0.10 | 0.0978 | 0.9775 | 0.1002 | 1.0021 |
| 0.20 | 0.1854 | 0.9269 | 0.2017 | 1.0087 |
| 0.30 | 0.2613 | 0.8709 | 0.3062 | 1.0206 |
| 0.40 | 0.3274 | 0.8186 | 0.4160 | 1.0401 |
| 0.50 | 0.3857 | 0.7713 | 0.5359 | 1.0718 |
| 0.60 | 0.4368 | 0.7281 | 0.6787 | 1.1312 |
| 0.67 | 0.4686 | 0.6993 | 0.8353 | 1.2468 |
| 1.00 | 0.5669 | 0.5669 | — | — |
| 1.50 | 0.5498 | 0.3665 | — | — |
| 2.00 | 0.4030 | 0.2015 | — | — |
| 2.50 | 0.0859 | 0.0344 | — | — |
A dash means the cross curve has turned back. The curves were traced in 40-digit arithmetic, and each sampled point was checked to be a zero mode of the lattice operator assembled from the Hessian printed in Appendix B.
Recompute this figure
- paired_dispersion.py Traces both curves from the polynomials of Appendix F, checks the limits and windows of Theorem 5.5, and writes the samples drawn here.
sha256 843e2bf489786b6b92a835f7e7ca0d3157217e28715df81d0162c54e4b1f75d5 - kuhn_bloch.py Rebuilds the operator from the Hessian of Appendix B and checks that the cross curve is exactly its cross sector.
sha256 b7ca85f6ff5e5aa92b37d46589658f1f10f4b40effa93c3dd7d66d8ca6483059
At gravitational-wave frequencies the correction is far too small to see. For a spacing up to 106 Planck lengths and frequencies up to 5000 Hz, every non-gauge mode of wavelength at least 2π × 1013 spacings, in every direction, has a phase speed within 2 × 10−50 of light (Corollary 5.3). Along the paired direction the plus mode differs from light by about 7 × 10−66; whether a bound that small holds in every direction is open. Both numbers lie far below the bound from GW170817. Here “light” means the null cone of the lattice metric: reading GW170817 as a test of it assumes that photons travel on the same cone, which the paper does not derive.
How the result works / 04 The classical limit
Lattice solutions with sources converge to linearized Einstein fields, with the coupling taken to zero before the torus grows.
Free waves on the light cone are the first classical test. The second asks more: solutions of the lattice equations with sources must converge to solutions of Einstein’s equations, without an unproved stability constant. Section 4 of the paper proves this at linear order in the field.
The equations are the unconstrained Regge equations: stationarity of the action, with matter, under variations of all fifteen edge classes, at configurations where every simplex is Lorentzian. The posting components of their solutions need not vanish, so the solutions are not configurations of the path sum at κ = 1, which keeps every posting null; the two are related at linear order. They are solved on a torus of side N, periodic in record time as well as in space, with sources whose waves avoid the light cone. The source problem is therefore elliptic in character: radiation and retarded propagation are not part of these theorems. And N → ∞ is a longer box at fixed spacing, so the waves grow longer in lattice units: a long-wavelength limit, not a refinement.
The core is the linear limit (Theorem 4.6). For a stress T conserved on a cone of waves that avoids the light cone, the solution of the gauge-fixed lattice equations tends at long wavelength to the de Donder solution of the linearized Einstein equations:
qκ(u) hμν(u) → 16πG (Tμν(0) − ½ gμνT(0)), G = 1/(8πs).
The stability bound is a closed-form matrix plus any margin, not an assumed constant, and the theorem holds for every κ > ½, so it does not use the identification. The flat-kernel and solution statements below (Theorems 4.2, 4.4 and 4.8 to 4.10, Propositions 4.5 and 4.11) are stated at κ = 1 and inherit it; the closed-torus Gauss law (Theorem 4.7) and the fixed-strength Theorems 4.12 to 4.16 hold for every κ > ½, like Theorem 4.6. Toward the light cone the gauge-fixed solution operator is not uniformly bounded: a bound holds outside the quartic shell |qκ(u)| ≥ c‖u‖4, the exponent 4 is sharp among integer powers, and the zero modes found inside the shell are lattice gauge modes.
On a torus the waves are the points 2πm/N, and the operator has to be invertible at every one of them, apart from the zero modes every flat lattice has: the constant strains, which deform the torus flatly, and the vertex moves, the lattice’s gauge directions. Through the Bloch decomposition this is a statement about one integer polynomial F1 with 741 terms, the gauge-fixed Bloch determinant: it must not vanish at a nonzero wave of the torus. Theorem 4.2 proves that for every odd side not divisible by 105. Even sides fail, for the reason of section 06: when N is even the axis corner πec is a wave of the torus, and the corner mode is a zero mode that is neither a strain nor a vertex move (Theorem 4.4). The exclusion of 105 is a limit of the proof, not a known failure. The proof is 2-adic, with three routes that need N prime to 3, to 5 or to 7, and the odd multiples of 105 are open.
The lattice also has fewer zero modes than general relativity on the same torus. Time is periodic, so every null integer wave, such as m = (1, 1, 1, 0), carries two transverse polarizations that solve the linearized Einstein equations. On the lattice, on the sides of Theorem 4.2, those waves carry no zero mode beyond the strains and vertex moves. Along the null lines of Proposition 4.5, the waves s(1, 1, 1, 0) and their permutations, F1 vanishes at the origin to order 8, against order 4 along an axis line. The paper reads this as the two transverse eigenvalues being of order |k|4 there rather than |k|2 (an inference): at such a null torus wave only the lattice correction, of order (2π|m|/N)4 rather than (2π|m|/N)2, keeps the operator invertible. These small divisors get smaller as N grows, as for time-periodic wave equations, and the paper takes them to be why the constants of the solution theorems depend on N (also an inference).
Near the origin, logarithmic axes
Across the zone
- axis line (w, 1, 1, 1)
- null line (w, w, w, 1)
- waves of the torus, s = 2πm/N
- First wave, s = 2π/N
- 0.2027
- |F1| there, axis line
- 5.3 × 10−2
- |F1| there, null line
- 7.5 × 10−4
N = 31 is odd and not divisible by 105: the flat kernel is a theorem (Theorem 4.2).
The curves are |F1| on the axis line z = (w, 1, 1, 1) and on the null line z = (w, w, w, 1), with w = eis, from the closed forms of Proposition 4.5: on the unit circle they are 512 sin4(s/2) cos2(s/2) and 256 sin8(s/2) (10 cos s − 4)2 |f(2 cos s)|, with f(x) = 3x3 − 6x2 − 12x + 16. The dots are the waves of the chosen torus on the two lines. Away from the origin the gauge-fixed operator is singular exactly where F1 vanishes: on the null line at s = 1.008 and 2.710, the roots of f, and at s = 1.159, where cos s = 2/5; on the axis line only at the corner, s = π. Proposition 4.5 shows that F1 ≠ 0 on the null lines for 0 < s ≤ arccos(3/5); Theorem 4.2 covers every wave of the torus, not only these two lines.
The program below checks the closed forms against the lattice: along both lines the determinant of the gauge-fixed operator assembled from Appendix B, divided by F1 and by the paper’s other two factors, (z0z1z2z3)−3 and det(Γ†Γ)2, is one constant, and the operator is singular at the zeros drawn.
Check these closed forms
- kuhn_bloch.py Assembles the operator from the Hessian of Appendix B and checks Proposition 4.5 on both lines, with the zeros of F₁ and the invertibility near the origin on the null line.
sha256 b7ca85f6ff5e5aa92b37d46589658f1f10f4b40effa93c3dd7d66d8ca6483059
A fixed source cannot simply be solved, and two proved obstructions say why. On a closed torus the equations with a static positive mass have no small solution: the flat lattice pairs with the mass at first order with a fixed sign, while the left side of the equations is of second order (Theorem 4.7). A static positive mass must be compensated, the discrete form of ∫ ρ = 0 on a three-torus (an inference). And a source whose linear response has nonzero self-energy needs compensating stresses at second order, a discrete von Laue condition; such sources are dense among the compatible ones, though no physically selected source has been shown to be one.
So the solution theorems carry three pieces of matter, fixed before any solution is sought: the resting body, clocks on the time edges with the point-particle action; a uniform compensation of its mean density, a modelling choice; and a medium, a spring on the proper lengths of the timelike edges with the flat lattice as its rest lengths. The medium’s first variation at the flat lattice vanishes, so the linear field is the body’s own. The medium holds the equations along the constant strains and vertex moves, which vanish at first order and first act at second order in the coupling. It is a model, with no degrees of freedom of its own.
With that matter, and the medium’s amplitude large enough for the side and the body, on every odd side not divisible by 105 the full coupled equations on every edge have exact solutions for small coupling σ, in the Lorentzian chamber and locally unique (Theorem 4.8). The limits are then taken in a fixed order.
Then grow the torus, along the odd sides not divisible by 105. The rescaled field converges at every edge to the linearized Einstein field of the source, up to a lattice gauge transformation and a flat deformation (Theorem 4.9). For a compact body it gives −GM/R (Theorem 4.10, section 05).
First take the coupling to zero on a fixed torus. Exact solutions u exist for small σ, and u/σ tends to the linear lattice field plus a vector of constant strains and vertex moves (Theorem 4.8).
The order matters. A source of fixed strength on a growing torus would need a stability bound uniform in N, and at κ = 1 none holds over all wavelengths, because of the static resonance that section 05 shows: a static wave within 2π/N of it is nearly a zero mode on every large torus, and there are flat lattices arbitrarily close to the κ = 1 lattice with exact non-gauge zero modes (Proposition 4.11). A medium of fixed amplitude cannot remove them, and one strong enough to do so would act as a mass for the long-wave field. For a static, band-limited source at a fixed small strength α, what holds uniformly is the long-wave part. The band equations have exactly one small solution on each large torus, with constants that do not depend on N; divided by α, it lies within Cα of the linearized Einstein field at every edge once N is large, up to constant strains and vertex moves. The gauge directions are controlled, and the band field has an explicit second-order limit, for pure gravity with a fixed external source and for the band equations only (Theorems 4.12 to 4.16). Imposing the remaining equations at fixed strength is open.
So the content of the weak-field limits is linear. The nonlinear solutions add existence on each torus, not nonlinear content in the limit, and nonlinear Einstein solutions are not reached. Section 09 says what would have to replace the medium.
How the result works / 05 Newton
A resting mass sources Newton’s potential, with G = 1/(8πs) computed, not inserted.
The source law is the other half of the classical test. A resting body is a clock on the time edges, with the point-particle action of a static mass. With the action scale s, the linear field equation is s H₀h = −τ for an edge source τ, and the lattice Newton clause, htt q(u) = 8πGM for every static mode of the field of a point mass, holds for exactly one coupling: G = 1/(8πs) (Section 3.5). Reading G as Newton’s constant uses that action scale; reading M as the body’s mass uses the point-particle reading of a clock, which the paper labels a model.
Theorem 5.4 makes the static kernel precise. The time-time response χtt of the gauge-fixed κ = 1 operator to a time-edge source satisfies |χtt(k) q(k)/cN − 1| ≤ 2.2 × 1026 ‖k‖2 for 0 < ‖k‖ ≤ 10−10, where cN = 8πG·2Mp for a source of one-site proper mass Mp. The figure computes the ratio itself, from the operator of Appendix B, out to the lattice scale.
Lattice response over the Newton kernel, along three static directions
- (−1,1,0,0), through the resonance printed in Appendix B
- (3,−1,−1,−1), along one posting’s spatial step
- (1,1,−1,−1), the static paired direction
- Long wavelength
- The ratio tends to 1 in every static direction: Newton’s 1/q kernel with G = 1/(8πs). Along the three directions shown, (ratio − 1)/|k|2 tends to about 1.45, 1.87 and 0.18, in that order (numerical).
- Lattice scale
- Each direction shown meets a static resonance, where the operator has a static zero mode and the response diverges. Appendix B prints the one at u = (−t*, t*, 0, 0) with cos t* = 9/11, |k| = 0.866.
- Same point, two ways
- Along (1,1,−1,−1) the resonance sits at |k| = 2.526, where the plus curve of the dispersion figure reaches ω = 0.
The ratio is χttq/cN for a static wave u (Σua = 0), with |k|2 = q(u) = Σua2. The clock of proper mass Mp has the action Mp√−ℓ on its time edge, so its source there is Mp/(2√12), and the time-time readout is the time edge’s change divided by 12. In that normalization the ratio tends to 1 with no adjustable factor. Directions are written as covectors in record coordinates; vertical lines mark the resonances, beyond which the response changes sign.
Values along the three directions
| direction | resonance |k| | ratio at |k| = 0.1 | ratio at |k| = 0.3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| (−1,1,0,0) | 0.8663 | 1.0147 | 1.1481 |
| (3,−1,−1,−1) | 0.7407 | 1.0191 | 1.2015 |
| (1,1,−1,−1) | 2.5264 | 1.0018 | 1.0162 |
Recompute this figure
- kuhn_bloch.py Checks the normalization above, the vector W of Appendix B, and with --static writes the curves drawn here.
sha256 b7ca85f6ff5e5aa92b37d46589658f1f10f4b40effa93c3dd7d66d8ca6483059
For a body of finite size, Theorem 4.10 turns the kernel into the potential, in the ordered limit of section 04. For a smooth static density of compact support, the exact coupled solutions have −½htt = −GM/R at proper distance R outside the body, up to an explicit finite-size remainder, in a suitable lattice gauge, with G = 1/(8π) at unit action scale. The lattice body is a band truncation of a smooth body. A body supported on finitely many lattice sites is not covered, because at κ = 1 every compact lattice body of nonzero mass couples to the static resonance shown in the figure.
How the result works / 06 The doublers
Four massless modes sit at the axis corners of the Brillouin zone, each on a cone of its own.
A Lorentzian symbol vanishes on a cone, and a cone is unbounded. On a lattice that cone runs out to the edge of the Brillouin zone, so the operator can vanish far from the origin. At κ = 1 the gauge-fixed operator has an exact zero mode at each of the four axis corners πec, the waves with one coordinate π and the others 0. A Euclidean lattice operator that is positive away from the origin has no such zeros. Lattice fermions have doublers for a different reason; these belong to real-time discretizations, and at κ = 1 they sit exactly at the axis corners because the postings are null.
At the corner πec the gauge-fixed operator A = B + ΓΓ† has a one-dimensional kernel. It is spanned by vc(d) = 2|d|−3 on the seven classes with dc = 0, and 0 on the other eight (Proposition 6.1). The Bloch matrix and the vertex-move columns annihilate vc separately, so it is a zero mode for every gauge weight, not an artefact of the gauge term, and it is not a vertex move.
Kernel dimension at the sixteen half-period corners
The doubler at πe₀, in position space
The corners of the zone are πδ with δ a string of four bits, so they carry the same labels as the vertices of a cell. The kernel has dimension 10 at the origin, where it is the constant strains; 1 at each axis corner, where it is a doubler; and 0 at the other eleven corners. In position space the doubler at πe₀ is the field (−1)x₀v₀(d): at every vertex it changes the squared lengths of the seven edges in the cube orthogonal to axis 0 by ¼, ½ and 1 for one, two and three steps, and the sign flips with each step along axis 0. Edges that step along axis 0 do not change. In the drawing axis 1 runs to the right, axis 2 to the back and axis 3 up. As a check, 3·(¼)² + 3·(½)² + 1² = 31/16, the paper's |v₀|².
Near the corner the Schur complement of A onto the doubler's direction, the doubler's effective operator, is (√3/640) h⊤Kh at leading order, where h is the offset from the corner and K has one negative and three positive eigenvalues, with det K = −1013375 = −552·335 (Proposition 6.2). Each doubler is massless and propagates on a cone of its own. The two kinds of cone point different ways: record time is timelike for the graviton and spacelike for the doubler, and no direction is timelike or null for both (Theorem 6.15). The figure shows this on one plane of waves.
The plane of waves k = ae₀ + b(1,1,1,1)
- graviton branch: its two transverse polarizations; the light cone at 0
- doubler branch: a second cone at πe₀
- leading-order cones, q = 0 and h⊤Kh = 0
- their timelike directions
- Record time (1,1,1,1)
- q = −4/3, timelike for the graviton; h⊤Kh = 190, spacelike for the doubler
- Axis of the doubler's cone
- (1, −0.171, −0.171, −0.171), the eigenvector of K's negative eigenvalue: 16.5° from e₀, 76.5° from record time (numerical)
- Shared timelike directions
- none: 30q + h⊤Kh is positive definite (Theorem 6.15)
The curves are the waves in this window at which the gauge-fixed operator, assembled from the Hessian printed in Appendix B, has a zero mode, found sector by sector under the symmetry that permutes axes 1, 2 and 3. Near the origin the graviton branch follows the light cone, which opens around record time; near πe₀ the doubler branch follows the doubler's cone, which opens around a direction close to e₀. Away from the two points the branches are lattice modes of the same symmetry.
Recompute this figure
- kuhn_bloch.py Rebuilds the operator from Appendix B, checks Propositions 6.1 and 6.2 and the numbers of Theorem 6.15, and with --slice writes the zero-set data of the plane.
sha256 b7ca85f6ff5e5aa92b37d46589658f1f10f4b40effa93c3dd7d66d8ca6483059
The doublers feel a constant background directly, without derivatives. A constant strain H moves the zero at corner c at first order by δc(H), the pairing of vc with the derivative of the Bloch matrix along H. The shift vanishes for every strain of the irreducible representation E and for the conformal strain. For the T₂ probe it is ∓√3/32, and the four shifts always sum to −396/(1152√3) times tr H (Proposition 6.3), so the doublers' squared mass is linear in the background strain. The trace has a direct meaning: Haa is the change of the squared length of the posting along axis a, so tr H is the total change of the four postings’ squared lengths. A massless particle that couples to a constant background without derivatives gives, in a pair loop at zero external momentum in four dimensions, a logarithm of the infrared cutoff. In the ordered limit the only infrared cutoff on the lattice is the regulator ε. The figure puts each background the paper names on the lattice.
Change of squared length, class by class
| Postings | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1000 | −1 | |
| 0100 | −1 | |
| 0010 | +1 | |
| 0001 | +1 | |
| Two steps | ||
| 1100 | 0 | |
| 1010 | 0 | |
| 1001 | 0 | |
| 0110 | 0 | |
| 0101 | 0 | |
| 0011 | 0 | |
| Three steps | ||
| 1110 | +1 | |
| 1101 | +1 | |
| 1011 | −1 | |
| 0111 | −1 | |
| The time edge | ||
| 1111 | 0 | |
Bars are drawn to the largest change of the chosen background; the numbers are exact.
The probe HT₂
A traceless spatial probe in the representation T₂ (Section 6.1). It changes the squared lengths of the four postings by −1, −1, +1, +1, so their total is unchanged. The shifts are −√3/32 at c = 0, 1 and +√3/32 at c = 2, 3 (Proposition 6.3): they sum to zero, and two doublers turn tachyonic.
| −1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 | −1 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 0 | 1 | −1 |
| 0 | 0 | −1 | 1 |
- Total change of the postings’ squared lengths, tr H
- 0
- Time edge over 12, htt
- 0
| c = 0 | −√3/32 | |
|---|---|---|
| c = 1 | −√3/32 | |
| c = 2 | +√3/32 | |
| c = 3 | +√3/32 |
Shift bars share one scale across all seven backgrounds; positive opens a gap, negative is tachyonic.
A constant profile changes the squared length of class d by fd, and a strain H is the profile fd = d⊤Hd, so the postings carry the diagonal of H and the time edge carries 1⊤H1 = 12 htt. The strains form a ten-dimensional subspace of the fifteen classes. The shift δc is the derivative of the Bloch matrix at the corner πec along the background, paired with the doubler; a positive shift opens a gap, as a mass does, and a negative one makes the doubler tachyonic. For every strain the four shifts sum to −396/(1152√3) times tr H (Proposition 6.3). The shifts are the paper’s; the class changes follow from fd = d⊤Hd. The paper notes that the one-loop dynamics itself produces a constant profile outside the strains (Section 6.6).
All seven backgrounds in one table
| Background | Postings 1000, 0100, 0010, 0001 | Time edge | tr H | Shifts at c = 0, 1, 2, 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The flat metric g1 | 0 0 0 0 | −12 | 0 | 0 0 0 0 |
| The strain 11⊤, which moves κ | +1 +1 +1 +1 | +16 | 4 | −11/(32√3) −11/(32√3) −11/(32√3) −11/(32√3) |
| The probe HE | 0 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 0 |
| The probe HT₂ | −1 −1 +1 +1 | 0 | 0 | −√3/32 −√3/32 +√3/32 +√3/32 |
| The strain H01 = 1, H23 = −1 | 0 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 | +1/(16√3) +1/(16√3) −1/(16√3) −1/(16√3) |
| The field of a resting mass | +3/4 +3/4 +3/4 +3/4 | +6 | 3 | −33/(128√3) −33/(128√3) −33/(128√3) −33/(128√3) |
| The body-diagonal profile, not a strain | 0 0 0 0 | +1 | +√3/32 +√3/32 +√3/32 +√3/32 |
Check these numbers
- regge_action.py Rebuilds the action of a Kuhn simplex from its areas and dihedral angles and recovers the matrix C of Appendix B: exactly, when each simplex takes its own flat dihedral angle as its share at a triangle; with the equal share 2π/nh the simplex Hessians differ on three pairs of edges by terms that cancel at every triangle, and the lattice operator is the same. Then computes the seven corner shifts shown here, and the coefficients of Proposition 6.4, from the third variation of the action.
sha256 b27ebf0677a9660f99f4f912643a7ace184606b9693cb347467effb699f19a84
Nothing in the construction gives the doublers a mass. A flat background that keeps every posting null shifts the four zeros, at first order, by amounts that sum to zero, so it cannot lift all four, and any nonzero shift of that kind makes at least one doubler tachyonic. A strain that moves all four the same way changes the posting lengths: raising κ above 1, the strain −11⊤, gives all four a mass, and it leaves κ = 1 (Theorem 6.10). The doublers belong to the null postings.
How the result works / 07 One loop
The one-loop anisotropy grows like log(1/ε), so the ordered graviton limit does not exist.
A massless graviton needs more than the right tree-level propagator. At one loop its self-energy must not develop a mass, a width or an anisotropy that survives the removal of the regulator. That is also where an observable effect could hide. At tree level the lattice’s correction is suppressed by (kphb)2 and lies far below the GW170817 bound (section 03), but a one-loop mass, width or shift of the cone would be suppressed only by the loop factor (an inference). Read as a loop effect, a cone shift δ = 8π(ℓP/b)2 d (an identification) would contradict GW170817 at a spacing up to two Planck lengths for every |d| ≥ 10−14, when the other terms are negligible (Section 5.4); no theorem yet computes d.
The regulator ε is the damping of the path sum’s Gaussian-order construction, a regulator model: the real-time weight carries a factor e−ε|x|²/2, and its normalized moments converge to (ε − iaAR)−1, the damped inverse of the flat Hessian AR on the retained edges R (Theorem 3.2). The paper asks this in a stated diagram model: the graviton and scalar sunset and seagull diagrams at zero external momentum, with the Feynman-type gauge term at unit weight, no ghost line, the Feynman sign of iε and one massless scalar for matter (Section 6.1). Two traceless spatial probes, one in each of the representations E and T₂ of the axis permutations, give the same value for any covariant self-energy once each is divided by its DeWitt norm, so the real part of their difference, ΔN(ε), measures an anisotropy. The limits are taken in a fixed order.
Then remove the regulator. Δ(ε) = (5/(44√335 π2)) log(1/ε) + r₀ + o(1): no finite limit (Theorem 6.8).
First grow the torus at a fixed regulator ε > 0. The limit exists and is a Brillouin-zone integral, Δ(ε).
At identified κ = 1 the outer limit does not exist: Δ(ε) grows without bound. The logarithm comes from the four doublers. In the language of Feynman integrals, each axis corner is a pinch: the doubler's eigenvalue vanishes quadratically there, so its gradient is zero: no direction increases it at first order, and no deformation of the integration contour avoids the iε prescription. At zero external momentum both lines of the sunset carry the same wave, so each corner contributes a double pole. Every other degenerate zero except the origin has a direction along which all its vanishing eigenvalues increase at first order (Theorem 6.7), so the contour can be moved off it and its contribution is finite (Proposition 6.9). At the origin the cubic vertex vanishes on constant strains, so that contribution is finite too, and nothing cancels the corners' logarithm. That reading is a summary; the proof is Propositions 6.6 and 6.9 with Theorems 6.7 and 6.8. Two further facts are exact: the scalar’s operator does not vanish at the axis corners, where its symbol is 8√3/3, and a ghost loop, were one added, could not cancel a corner logarithm either, because the vertex-move Gram determinant is nonzero away from k = 0.
Near each corner the calculation reduces to one integral (Propositions 6.5 and 6.6). Over the Lorentzian form Q(y) = −y₀2 + y₁2 + y₂2 + y₃2,
I(ε) = ∫ e−|y|² (Q(y) + iε)−2 d4y = −π2 ∫0∞ e−ετ τ(1 + iτ)(1 + τ2)−3/2 dτ.
The real part tends to −π2. The imaginary part has the integrand e−εττ2(1 + τ2)−3/2, which falls like 1/τ until the regulator cuts it off near τ = 1/ε. Plotted against log τ it is a plateau, so once ε is small each factor of ten in ε adds the same area, ln 10. The four corners together give the doubler term D(ε) = (5/(44√335 π2)) log(1/ε) + O(1), about 6.3 × 10−4 log(1/ε), and Δ(ε) − D(ε) has a finite limit.
The integrand of Im I(ε), per unit of log τ
The doubler term D(ε)
- Area against ln τ
- 12.931
- D(ε) × 10³
- 8.13
- Added per factor of 10, small ε
- 1.45 × 10−3
The first chart is the integrand of −Im I(ε)/π2 times τ, so that its area against ln τ is the integral. The second is D(ε), which is (5/(44√335 π2)) times that area exactly, since ρ = −3/7688 and |det L| = 3√1013375/12402 in the paper's formula for D. Its asymptote, drawn dotted, is (5/(44√335 π2))(log(1/ε) + log 2 − 1 − γ), with γ Euler's constant, and merges with the curve below ε ≈ 10−2; the constant follows from the same integral. The thin curves give each corner line a constant mass z = 10−3, 10−6 or 10−9 (Proposition 6.13); each stops at about D(|z|), and a tachyonic shift or a width of the same size stops within 10−5 of it (numerical). The values are numerical quadratures of the exact formula. The figure shows the doubler term only: Δ(ε) itself is D(ε) plus terms with finite limits (Proposition 6.6, Theorem 6.8).
Recompute this figure
- doubler_log.py Evaluates the integral of Proposition 6.5 in 30-digit quadrature, checks the exact prefactor 5/(44√335 π2), the slope per factor of ten and the asymptote log 2 − 1 − γ, checks Proposition 6.13 for a mass, a tachyonic shift and a width, and with --json writes the values drawn here, the thin curves with --dressed as well.
sha256 3ad7070c05193a413ca0dc23e85df145b27a0c52e40bee323afe72da501d1f0b
The logarithm needs the doublers to be exactly massless. Give each corner line a constant dressing z, so that (r + iε)−1 becomes (r + z + iε)−1, and the doubler term has a finite limit for every z ≠ 0, massive, tachyonic or complex (Proposition 6.13): the thin curves follow D(ε) until ε falls below about |z|, and then stop. At κ = 1 nothing in the construction supplies such a gap (section 06). Whether the doublers’ own one-loop self-energy does is open. It depends on momentum, power counting suggests that it grows like log(1/ε) itself, and the statement for a constant z does not cover a dressing of that kind (Section 6.6). Near the corners it is as large as the doublers’ tree-level operator at the regulators reached, so a finite anisotropy obtained that way would not be a massless graviton with small corrections (an inference).
The logarithm is also slow. The paper’s computed anisotropy at ε = 0.0125 is 0.1541 ± 0.0008, of which the logarithmic term accounts for 0.0028 (numerical). The logarithm overtakes a finite part of that size only when log(1/ε) exceeds about 240, that is, for ε below about 10−104, so at every regulator a computation can reach, the anisotropy is dominated by its finite part. The divergence is a property of the limit, and Theorem 6.8 proves it.
The statement holds in the stated diagram model at identified κ = 1, and the proof's computations are exact. It is a failure of one quantum limit, not of the classical results: none of this touches the recovery of linearized Einstein gravity and Newton's law.
The long-wave graviton has a zero-momentum question of its own. In the continuum a constant strain is a linear change of coordinates, so the one-loop effective action of constant strains can depend on it only through the volume: a cosmological term and nothing else. Anything else, the remainder R, is a mass term for the transverse-traceless graviton at zero momentum. On the lattice a linear map must also keep each null posting on its own axis, and only ±1 does (Theorem 6.17); the paper finds no other symmetry that would force R to vanish (inference).
No gauge fixing, ghost or covariant measure factor changes R, wave by wave at ε = 0 (Theorem 6.17), and one inequality on one explicit zone integral would prove it nonzero (Proposition 6.18). That inequality is not proved. Numerically R is about +7i in the graviton sector, and none of the measure weights examined cancels it (Proposition 6.20). What an imaginary R means depends on whether the real-time path sum has a unitary evolution in record time, which is not established: with one, R would be a width, which observed gravitational waves exclude given the identification of the lattice spacing; without one, the path sum at identified κ = 1 would not be a consistent quantum theory in record time.
How the result works / 08 Two masses at one loop
The long-wave rules give Newton’s potential its one-loop correction, 41/(10π). At κ = 1 the doublers enter the same channel.
General relativity treated as an effective field theory predicts a definite quantum correction to the potential between two masses (Donoghue; Bjerrum-Bohr, Donoghue and Holstein):
V(r) = −(Gm1m2/r)(1 + 3G(m1 + m2)/(rc2)) − (41/(10π)) G2ℏm1m2/(r3c3).
The last term comes from the non-analytic log q2 part of the one-loop amplitude. Gravity’s one-loop ultraviolet divergences are local and do not touch it, and the coefficient does not depend on how gravity is completed at short distances, provided the light particles are those of general relativity: the graviton and the two masses. That proviso is where a lattice with doublers has to be careful.
Section 7 of the paper assembles the one-loop amplitude from rules taken from the lattice. Each line and vertex but two is the long-wavelength limit of a lattice object. The regulated two-point function of the Regge operator with a de Donder gauge term tends, off the light cone, to the de Donder graviton line. The simplicial scalar tends to the Klein–Gordon line, and its first variation in the edge lengths to the stress-tensor coupling. The three-graviton vertex is the third variation of the Regge action, with exact momentum conservation, and its long-wave limit is the Einstein–Hilbert vertex with the same G as the propagator. Two ingredients are imposed rather than derived. The first is the Feynman iη on every line: the lattice regulator’s own prescription puts strain poles on both sides of the real axis, and the original reading, which used it with a Born cube and no subtraction, fails (Theorem 7.1). The second is the ghost vertex, which the path-sum measure does not supply. The scalar action and the gauge readout are model choices. So the long-wave rules are the Einstein–Hilbert rules in harmonic gauge, written in record coordinates, with G = 1/(8πs), and the loop integrals are continuum integrals.
With these rules the paper computes the one-loop amplitude for a static momentum transfer Q between two masses, class by class, with the iterated tree exchange, the Born term, subtracted. Read at small transfer, the coefficient of log |Q|2 is 123u, with u = √3 μ1μ2/(960π2as2) for masses μ1, μ2 in lattice units (Theorem 7.5). Through the identifications of Corollary 7.9 that is the 41/(10π) above. The figure shows how the total is assembled.
- This paper, Table 3
- Bjerrum-Bohr, Donoghue and Holstein (BDH)
Each bar starts where the one above it ended, so the last row is the sum. A row’s value c is its contribution to V ⊃ −c G2ℏm1m2/(πr3); in lattice units the class’s long-wave log coefficient is 30c u. Box and crossed box, the triangles and the double seagull agree class by class. The vertex corrections and the vacuum polarization differ one by one, because the two calculations use different off-shell three-graviton vertices: the background-field vertex, with the ’t Hooft–Veltman vacuum polarization, in BDH, and the Einstein–Hilbert vertex in de Donder gauge here. Their sums agree, −167/30 in both.
The box and crossed box are stated only together. Read separately, each keeps a t−2 log t2 from the soft graviton line, a numerical finding, and their separate readings are expected to fail; the two terms cancel in the sum, which is proved. Of the vacuum polarization’s 103/30, the graviton loop gives 133/30 and the ghost loop −1 in the paper’s computation; only the sum is proved and used. The diagrams are illustrations, one of each class: the straight lines are the two masses and the wavy lines are gravitons.
The value depends on how a potential is read from an amplitude, and the paper states its reading: the Born reading of BDH, with the regulator’s logarithm subtracted in a form that does not change when the regulator is rescaled, and the coefficient read at small momentum transfer. The natural first readings are false, which is why the reading matters.
- 1Born cube, no subtractionTheorem 7.1Fails
The Born term is integrated over a cube, nothing is subtracted, and the regulator is applied separately to the matter and the graviton lines. For two cube sizes the potentials cannot both have regulator limits at every nearby transfer: what fails is the existence of the limit, not the value of a coefficient.
- 2Cylinder, every transferTheorem 7.2Fails
The Born term is integrated over a cylinder, a spatial cube times a time window that holds no antiparticle pole, and the regulator’s logarithm is subtracted. At an explicit transfer on the centre of a face of a cylinder, two matter poles pinch from opposite sides and the soft graviton line gives log2 η, which no subtraction of one log η removes. So no reading at every transfer can hold for every such cylinder, whatever coefficient it assigns.
- 3Cylinder, small transfersTheorems 7.3 to 7.5Theorem
Read only at small transfers, the germ of the potential at zero, the shells between different cylinders contribute no logarithm, and the whole restricted potential has the coefficient 123u. The window of small transfers never reaches the face-centre point of Theorem 7.2.
From 123u to 41/(10π): the identifications
Physical units come from the relations of Section 3.5: G = 1/(8πs), forced by the lattice Newton clause; ℏ = 1/a and c = 1, by definition; masses mi = ℏμi, a model; and the normalization N of the amplitude, fixed by matching the tree, N · (−√3 μ1μ2/(2s)) = −4πGm1m2, so N = ℏ2/√3. Corollary 7.9 then reads the lattice amplitude physically through identifications, each named: κ = 1; one units map for tree and loop; the Fourier pair c log |q|2 ↦ −c/(2πr3); and the Born reading, under which the amplitude normalized by 4aM1M2, minus the cylinder Born term, is the two-body potential.
Then Nu/(2G2ℏm1m2) = 1/30, and the r−3 term is −123Nu/(2πr3) = −(123/30) G2ℏm1m2/(πr3) = −(41/(10π)) G2ℏm1m2/r3. Within the Born reading the coefficient is unique: every loop cutoff and every restricted cylinder give 123u (Theorem 7.5), and the result depends on neither N nor the mass normalization. The classical part of the potential enters by definition: only the r−3 term is fixed, and nothing is claimed at finite transfer.
The coefficient is a theorem about the long-wave rules, not about the lattice path sum at κ = 1, and the reason is the proviso above: the lattice’s light particles are not only those of general relativity. The four doublers of section 06 see the static field of a mass. In de Donder gauge the long-wave field of a resting mass M couples to the doubler pair at every axis corner without derivatives, with the same strength at all four (Proposition 7.6):
δc(h) = −33M/(64√3 s q(u)) + o(q(u)−1), c = 0, 1, 2, 3.
The reason is in the trace: the field of a mass changes the squared lengths of the null postings. In a local model of one corner, the massless pair loop carries iπ2 log t2 at small external momentum t off the doubler’s cone, while a gapped pair carries no logarithm (Proposition 7.7). If near each corner the lattice integrand follows that model, and the rest of the zone does not cancel it, the static amplitude gains a term in log q2/q4. That term is more singular at small transfer than the log q2 behind the r−3 term, and with it the amplitude has no long-wave log coefficient at all (Theorem 7.8): the lattice form of requirement 7 would fail at κ = 1. Both conditions are open. In the local model a gap removes the logarithm, but at κ = 1 nothing in the construction supplies one, and moving κ above 1 gives all four doublers a mass at first order but abandons the identification (Theorem 6.10).
Three links between the long-wave amplitude and the path sum are open: the regulator limits of the lattice amplitude and its uniform remainder against the long-wave amplitude, which at κ = 1 contain the doubler corners; the identification of the amplitude with the moments of the path sum, including its ghost factor; and the graviton self-energy at zero momentum, whose ordered anisotropy diverges (section 07).
How the result works / 09 What is open
Four questions decide what the programme can eventually claim.
At identified κ = 1 the classical side succeeds at linear order and the quantum side fails, and both outcomes trace to the null postings. Classically they give the lattice its causal structure and leave its long-wave sector that of linearized gravity. Quantum mechanically they leave the four corner doublers massless.
What the results do not contain is as definite as what they do: κ = 1 as a consequence of the definitions, a nonzero long-wave remainder, any repair of the graviton sector, a derived measure, nonlinear Einstein solutions in the limit, matter whose equation of state needs no identification, and a quantum prediction at identified κ = 1. The one-loop coefficient 41/(10π) concerns the long-wave rules, not the lattice path sum.
- 1The value of κ
The quantum results are tied to it. At κ = 3/2 every half-period corner other than the origin is regular, while lattice-scale growth in record time remains (Proposition 6.16), and so, numerically, does the long-wave remainder: on the present evidence a change of κ alone would not give a massless graviton. A derived value without massless corner modes and with a vanishing remainder would reopen the quantum limit. A value chosen to make the graviton work would not, and the classical results would have to be derived again at it.
- 2The quantum graviton within the model
The doublers’ own self-energy and its sign; the threshold inequality that would prove the long-wave remainder nonzero; whether the logarithm of the doubler pair loop at nonzero momentum carries over to the lattice integrand, in the self-energy and in the static two-mass channel; and whether the real-time path sum has a unitary evolution in record time at all.
- 3The measure
A measure derived rather than chosen, with its regulator limit at infinite volume and its behaviour beyond Gaussian order.
- 4Matter and every edge
At fixed source strength the equations not yet imposed, the remaining rows along the constant strains and vertex moves and the static rows off the band, should be imposed too, with a solver that does not lose derivatives. Einstein’s second order needs matter with equations of its own. The model medium, at fixed amplitude, gravitates at second order like a Lorentz-violating graviton mass, an inference from a numerical computation; the posting gas is the candidate whose second order is controlled on the lattice.
Besides κ, the paper names three changes that could give a massless graviton with controlled one-loop corrections, and weighs each (Section 6.10).
A measure weight that is not covariant. It would have to cancel the remainder on both polarizations and, for the doublers, be positive on the corner modes while vanishing faster than |k|2 on long waves (Theorem 6.11, Proposition 6.20). None of the weights examined does this, and such a weight would be chosen to cancel a computed number, not derived.
A different lattice spacing. Every loop effect enters physical units through (ℓP/b)2 (Section 5.4), so the spacing changes the physical size of the remainder and of the doubler terms, not their presence.
Physics beyond one loop. The doublers’ self-energy is as large as their tree-level operator at the regulators a computation reaches, so a resummation or a condensation of the corner modes could change the picture. It would have to remove the massless corner modes from the long-wave dynamics, which a small gap does not do (Theorem 6.15), and leave the remainder zero.
Start with a question
Explore gravity in Recognition Science.
- How does gravity work?
A guided account of gravity in Recognition Science: why matter changes the rates of nearby processes, and why that makes things fall.
- The quantum gravity lab
Change a wave’s wavelength and direction and see how the lattice affects its motion, then run the calculations of the September dispersion paper, which puts time along one lattice axis.
- The Regge lab
Measure curvature on a triangulated spacetime, with worked examples and their programs.
- The simulation
Reality computed from its first recognition event, in exact arithmetic, as far as the work reaches today.
Read the derivations
The papers.
- Linearized Einstein gravity from Lorentzian Regge calculus on the Kuhn lattice, and the divergence of its one-loop graviton limit
Preliminary preprint, October 2026. Linearized Einstein gravity as the long-wavelength limit of lattice solutions, Newton's law for a compact body, and the proof, in a stated diagram model, that the ordered one-loop graviton limit diverges at identified κ = 1.
- A Discrete Informational Framework for Classical Gravity
Entropy (MDPI), 2026. Newtonian gravity with a small correction, compared with galaxy rotation without a separate parameter for each galaxy.
- Sourced Einstein equations from the recognition lattice
Preliminary preprint. The linearized Einstein equations with conserved sources about the flat lattice.
- What a point source does to the lattice
Preliminary preprint. Newton's kernel from the exact static response to a point source.
- A finite gravitational path sum on the recognition lattice
Preliminary preprint. A regulated Lorentzian Regge sum on the fixed lattice, with its stated premises.
- The research library
Every paper, with its assumptions and its connections to measurement.
Continue across the framework
Gravity is one consequence of the same structure.
The physics lessons follow the same conditions into light, comparison and measurement.