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Limits to Seeing High-Redshift Galaxies Due to Planck-Scale-Induced Blurring

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2016

Eric Steinbring*
Affiliation:
National Research Council Canada, Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada V9E 2E7 email: Eric.Steinbring@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
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If spacetime is “foamy” travel along a lightpath must be subject to continual, random distance fluctuations ± δ l proportional to Planck length l P ~ 10−35 m (Lieu & Hillman 2003). Although each “kick” by itself is tiny, these may accumulate. Accounting for redshifted (bluer) emitted photons, over a cosmological distance L = (1+z)L C for co-moving distance L C, the resultant phase perturbations Δ φ = 2π δ l/λ at observed wavelength λ could grow independently of telescope diameter D to a maximum of Δφmax=(1+z)Δφ0 (Steinbring 2007) where Δφ0=2π a 0 (l P α/λ)L 1 - α follows Ng et al. (2003). Here a 0 ~ 1 and α specifies the quantum-gravity model: 1/2 implies a random walk and 2/3 is consistent with the holographic principle; a vanishingly small ΔφP=Δφmax/[(1 + z) a 0 (L/l P)1 - α]=2π l P/λ is approached when α=1.

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