Planck Fluctuations, Measurement Uncertainties and the Holographic Principle

Abstract

Starting from a critical analysis of recently reported surprisingly large uncertainties in length and position measurements deduced within the framework of quantum gravity, we embark on an investigation both of the correlation structure of Planck scale fluctuations and the role the holographic hypothesis is possibly playing in this context. While we prove the logical independence of the fluctuation results and the holographic hypothesis (in contrast to some recent statements in that direction) we show that by combining these two topics one can draw quite strong and interesting conclusions about the fluctuation structure and the microscopic dynamics on the Planck scale. We further argue that these findings point to a possibly new and generalized form of quantum statistical mechanics of strongly (anti)correlated systems of degrees of freedom in this fundamental regime.