Research
From quantum subsystems to the structure of spacetime
Funded programme · 2024–2028
Spacetime Emergence from Quantum Mechanics: From Theory to Observations
Principal Investigator
Olle Engkvists Stiftelse
Award 225-0062
The programme
What remains of locality and subsystem independence when gravity is taken seriously?
I work across quantum gravity, quantum information, theoretical cosmology, and philosophy of physics. My current programme asks how quantum systems, their independence, and the structures we call spacetime should be defined when gravity is relevant.
The work combines conceptual analysis with quantum-information and algebraic methods, while looking for observational or laboratory consequences that do not depend on a single microscopic reconstruction of spacetime.
Research areas
Four connected ways into the programme
Spacetime emergence
How might geometric and causal structure arise from quantum degrees of freedom without assuming spacetime at the outset? I study what would make that emergence conceptually coherent and potentially observable.
Quantum foundations
Quantum theory works extraordinarily well, yet the transition from quantum mechanics to classical physical systems remains obscure. My work asks what makes something a system—or a thing—in the first place.
Quantum gravity
Gravity challenges fixed notions of locality, independence, and subsystem structure. I use quantum-information, algebraic, and conceptual tools to ask how those notions should be rebuilt when geometry is itself dynamical.
Theoretical cosmology
The Universe is the laboratory in which ideas about spacetime, gravity, and quantum laws must ultimately face observation. My established work spans string cosmology, the early Universe, dark energy, and modified gravity.
Research programme
How the programme develops
These are overlapping layers of one programme rather than completed phases: cosmology and gravity provide a testing ground for current questions about quantum systems and emergent spacetime, while the research horizon asks how that emergence might become empirically accessible.
Research foundations
Cosmology and gravity as a testing ground
My published work spans string and double-field-theory cosmology, all-order α′ corrections, early-Universe scenarios, dark-sector cosmology, and modified-gravity approaches to the cosmological constant problem. Together, these contributions connect formal gravitational theory with cosmological phenomenology and provide a technical and conceptual foundation for the current programme.
Explore selected work in cosmology and gravityActive programme · 2024–2028
From quantum systems to emergent spacetime
My current funded programme develops quantum-information, algebraic, and conceptual tools for understanding subsystem structure, independence, localisation, quantum reference frames, and the emergence of spacetime.
Explore recent workResearch horizon
From emergence to empirical signatures
A developing strand asks which features of emergent spacetime might survive as observational or laboratory signatures—ideally in ways that do not depend on a single microscopic reconstruction of spacetime.