Massless graviton in a model of quantum gravity with emergent spacetime

Abstract: In the model of quantum gravity proposed in JHEP 2020, 70 (2020), dynamical spacetime arises as a collective phenomenon of underlying quantum matter. Without a preferred decomposition of the Hilbert space, the signature, topology and geometry of an emergent spacetime depend upon how the total Hilbert space is partitioned into local Hilbert spaces. In this paper, it is shown that the massless graviton emerges in the spacetime realized from a Hilbert space decomposition that supports a collection of largely unentangled local clocks.