Lessons from the LQG String

Abstract

We give a non-technical description of the differences of quantisation of the bosonic string between the usual Fock-space approach and the treatment inspired by methods of loop quantum gravity termed the LCQ string. We point out the role of covariant states with continuous representations of the Weyl operators versus invariant states leading to discontinuous polymer representations. In the example of the harmonic oscillator we compare the optical absorption spectrum for the two quantisations and find that the question of distinguishability depends on the order in which limits are taken: For a fixed UV cut-off restricting the Hilbert space to a finite dimensional subspace the spectra can be made arbitrarily similar by an appropriate choice of state. However, if the states are chosen first, they differ at high frequencies.