Different approaches to quantum gravity generally predict that the dimension of spacetime at the fundamental level is not 4. The principal tool to measure how the dimension changes between the IR and UV scales of the theory is the spectral dimension. On the other hand, the noncommutative-geometric perspective suggests that quantum spacetimes ought to be characterized by a discrete complex set—the dimension spectrum. We show that these two notions complement each other and the dimension spectrum is very useful in unraveling the UV behavior of the spectral dimension. We perform an extended analysis highlighting the trouble spots and illustrate the general results with two concrete examples: the quantum sphere and the $\kappa$-Minkowski spacetime, for a few different Laplacians. In particular, we find that the spectral dimensions of the former exhibit log-periodic oscillations, the amplitude of which decays rapidly as the deformation parameter tends to the classical value. In contrast, no such oscillations occur for either of the three considered Laplacians on the $\kappa$-Minkowski spacetime.

• Received 11 June 2020
• Accepted 3 September 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.102.086003

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Published by the American Physical Society