Quantum Gravity and the Correspondence Principle

Abstract

Standard approaches to quantum gravity start with a pre-spacetime structure and attempt, in accordance with Bohr's correspondence principle, to recover the pseudo-Riemannian manifold in the low energy limit. These approaches assume there is a smooth transition from quantum gravity to general relativity common to successful quantum theories. However, as gravitational field, and hence spacetime, cannot be considered in isolation from physical fields, discontinuities in properties of physical fields, such as loss of mass at the electroweak symmetry breaking scale, may result in change of spacetime structure somewhere between the Planck scale and the scale where general relativity holds true. As a result, the correct theory of quantum gravity may not have general relativity as its low energy limit.