p-Adic fractality, canonical identification, and symmetries

The original motivation for the canonical identification

I: ∑ x_npⁿ →∑ x_np^-n,

and its variants - in particular the variant mapping real rationals with the defining integers below a pinary cutoff to p-adic rationals - was that it defines a continuous map from p-adics to reals and produces beautiful p-adic fractals as a map from reals to p-adics by canonical identification followed by a p-adically smooth map in turn followed by the inverse of the canonical identification.

The first drawback was that the map does not commute with symmetries. Second drawback was that the standard canonical identification from reals to p-adics with finite pinary cutoff is two-valued for finite integers. The canonical real images of these transcendentals are also transcendentals. These are however countable whereas p-adic algebraics and transcendentals having by definition a non-periodic pinary expansion are uncountable. Therefore the map from reals to p-adics is single valued for almost all p-adic numbers.

On the other hand, p-adic rationals form a dense set of p-adic numbers and define "almost all" for the purposes of numerics! Which argument is heavier? The direct identification of reals and p-adics via common rationals commutes with symmetries in an approximation defined by the pinary cutoff an is used in the canonical identification with pinary cutoff mapping rationals to rationals.

Symmetries are of extreme importance in physics. Is it possible to imagine the action of say Poincare transformations commuting with the canonical identification in the sets of p-adic and real transcendentals? This might be the case.

1. Wick rotation is routinely used in quantum field theory to define Minkowskian momentum integrals. One Wick rotates Minkowski space to Euclidian space, performs the integrals, and returns to Minkowskian regime by using the inverse of Wick rotation. The generalization to the p-adic context is highly suggestive. One could map the real Minkowski space to its p-adic counterpart, perform Poincare transformation there, and return back to the real Minkowski space using the inverse of the rational canonical identification.

2. For p-adic transdendentals one would a formal automorph of Poincare group as IPI^-1 and this Poincare group could seen as a fractal counterpart of the ordinary Poincare group. Mathematician would regard I as the analog of intertwining operator, which is linear map between Hilbert spaces. This variant of Poincare symmetry would be exact in the transcendental realm since canonical identification is continuous. For rationals this symmetry would fail.

3. For rationals which are constructed as ratios of small enough integers, the rational Poincare symmetry with group elements involving rationals constructed from small enough integers would be an exact symmetry. For both options the use of preferred coordinates, most naturally linear Minkowski coordinates would be essential since canonical identification does not commute with general coordinate transformations.

4. Which of these Poincare symmetries corresponds to the physical Poincare symmetry? The above argument does not make it easy to answer the question. One can however circumvent it. Maybe one could distinguish between rational and transcendental regime in the sense that Poincare group and other symmetries would be realized in different manner in these regimes?

Note that the analog of Wick rotation could be used also to define p-adic integrals by mapping the p-adic integration region to real one by some variant of canonical identification continuously, performing the integral in the real context, and mapping the outcome of the integral to p-adic number by canonical identification. Again preferred coordinates are essential and in TGD framework such coordinates are provided by symmetries. This would allow a numerical treatment of the p-adic integral but the map of the resulting rational to p-adic number would be two valued. The difference between the images would be determined by the numerical accuracy when p-adic expansions are used. This method would be a numerical analog of the analytic definition of p-adic integrals by analytic continuation from the intersection of real and p-adic worlds defined by rational values of parameters appearing in the expressions of integrals.

For details and background see the chapter p-Adic numbers and generalization of number concept.