Related papers: Gravity as BF theory plus potential
A detailed analysis of the BF formulation for general relativity given by Capovilla, Montesinos, Prieto, and Rojas is performed. The action principle of this formulation is written in an equivalent form by doing a transformation of the…
The bare bones of a theory of quantum gravity are exposed. It may have the potential to solve the cosmological constant problem. Less certain is its behavior in the Newtonian limit.
The spin foam framework provides a way to define the dynamics of canonical loop quantum gravity in a spacetime covariant way, by using a path integral over histories of quantum states which can be interpreted as `quantum space-times'. This…
We construct a new vacuum for loop quantum gravity, which is dual to the Ashtekar-Lewandowski vacuum. Because it is based on BF theory, this new vacuum is physical for $(2+1)$-dimensional gravity, and much closer to the spirit of spin foam…
Any approach to pure quantum gravity must eventually face the question of coupling quantum matter to the theory. In the past, several ways of coupling matter to spin foam quantum gravity have been proposed, but the dynamics of the coupled…
An affine quantization approach leads to a genuine quantum theory of general relativity by extracting insights from a short list of increasingly more complex, soluble, perturbably nonrenormalizable models.
In this paper I offer an introduction to group field theory (GFT) and to some of the issues affecting the foundations of this approach to quantum gravity. I first introduce covariant GFT as the theory that one obtains by interpreting the…
It is argued that quantum gravity has an interpretation as a topological field theory provided a certain constraint from the path intergral measure is respected. The constraint forces us to couple gauge and matter fields to gravity for…
We argue that a conformally invariant extension of general relativity coupled to the Standard Model is the fundamental theory that needs to be quantized. We show that it can be treated by loop quantum gravity techniques. Through a gauge…
We give a very concise review of the group field theory formalism for non-perturbative quantum gravity, a higher dimensional generalisation of matrix models. We motivate it as a simplicial and local realisation of the idea of 3rd…
Most of the approaches to the construction of a theory of quantum gravity share some principles which do not have specific experimental support up to date. Two of these principles are relevant for our discussion: (i) the gravitational field…
The description of gravity in the form of an embedding theory is based on the hypothesis that our space-time is a four-dimensional surface in a flat ten-dimensional space. The choice of standard Einstein-Hilbert action leads in this case to…
A unified description of all interactions could be based on a higher-dimensional theory involving only spinor fields. The metric arises as a composite object and the gravitational field equations contain torsion-corrections as compared to…
Gravity is understood as a geometrization of spacetime. But spacetime is also the manifold of the boundary values of the spinless point particle in a variational approach. Since all known matter, baryons, leptons and gauge bosons are…
We describe and study a certain class of modified gravity theories. Our starting point is Plebanski formulation of gravity in terms of a triple B^i of 2-forms, a connection A^i and a ``Lagrange multiplier'' field Psi^ij. The generalization…
The equations of motion describing all physical systems, except gravity, remain invariant if a constant is added to the Lagrangian. In the conventional approach, gravitational theories break this symmetry exhibited by all other physical…
Viewing gravitational energy-momentum as equal by observation, but different in essence from inertial energy-momentum naturally leads to the gauge theory of volume-preserving diffeormorphisms of an inner Minkowski space which can describe…
We propose a model of quantum gravity in arbitrary dimensions defined in terms of the BV quantization of a supersymmetric, infinite dimensional matrix model. This gives an (AKSZ-type) Chern-Simons theory with gauge algebra the space of…
Gravitation theory is formulated as gauge theory on natural bundles with spontaneous symmetry breaking where gauge symmetries are general covariant transformations, gauge fields are general linear connections, and Higgs fields are…
Quantum theory is formulated as a probabilistic theory on a flat Minkowski space-time, while general theory of relativity is formulated on a curved manifold as a geometric theory. Bohmian Quantum Gravity approach indicates that one need to…