A Kinetic Theory Approach to Quantum Gravity

We describe a kinetic theory approach to quantum gravity -- by which we mean a theory of the microscopic structure of spacetime, not a theory obtained by quantizing general relativity. A figurative conception of this program is like building a ladder with two knotted poles: quantum matter field on the right and spacetime on the left. Each rung connecting the corresponding knots represent a distinct level of structure. The lowest rung is hydrodynamics and general relativity; the next rung is semiclassical gravity, with the expectation value of quantum fields acting as source in the semiclassical Einstein equation. We recall how ideas from the statistical mechanics of interacting quantum fields helped us identify the existence of noise in the matter field and its effect on metric fluctuations, leading to the establishment of the third rung: stochastic gravity, described by the Einstein-Langevin equation. Our pathway from stochastic to quantum gravity is via the correlation hierarchy of noise and induced metric fluctuations. Three essential tasks beckon: 1) Deduce the correlations of metric fluctuations from correlation noise in the matter field; 2) Reconstituting quantum coherence -- this is the reverse of decoherence -- from these correlation functions 3) Use the Boltzmann-Langevin equations to identify distinct collective variables depicting recognizable metastable structures in the kinetic and hydrodynamic regimes of quantum matter fields and how they demand of their corresponding spacetime counterparts. This will give us a hierarchy of generalized stochastic equations -- call them the Boltzmann-Einstein hierarchy of quantum gravity -- for each level of spacetime structure, from the macroscopic (general relativity) through the mesoscopic (stochastic gravity) to the microscopic (quantum gravity).