English

Gravitational Wilson Loop in Discrete Quantum Gravity

High Energy Physics - Theory 2015-03-13 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

Results for the gravitational Wilson loop, in particular the area law for large loops in the strong coupling region, and the argument for an effective positive cosmological constant discussed in a previous paper, are extended to other proposed theories of discrete quantum gravity in the strong coupling limit. We argue that the area law is a generic feature of almost all non-perturbative lattice formulations, for sufficiently strong gravitational coupling. The effects on gravitational Wilson loops of the inclusion of various types of light matter coupled to lattice quantum gravity are discussed as well. One finds that significant modifications to the area law can only arise from extremely light matter particles. The paper ends with some general comments on possible physically observable consequences.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0907.2652,
  title  = {Gravitational Wilson Loop in Discrete Quantum Gravity},
  author = {Herbert W. Hamber and Ruth M. Williams},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0907.2652},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

39 pages, 10 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T13:25:19.192Z