A spin foam model for pure gauge theory coupled to quantum gravity

We propose a spin foam model for pure gauge fields coupled to Riemannian quantum gravity in four dimensions. The model is formulated for the triangulation of a four-manifold which is given merely combinatorially. The Riemannian Barrett--Crane model provides the gravity sector of our model and dynamically assigns geometric data to the given combinatorial triangulation. The gauge theory sector is a lattice gauge theory living on the same triangulation and obtains from the gravity sector the geometric information which is required to calculate the Yang--Mills action. The model is designed so that one obtains a continuum approximation of the gauge theory sector at an effective level, similarly to the continuum limit of lattice gauge theory, when the typical length scale of gravity is much smaller than the Yang--Mills scale.