Related papers: The Volume of the Past Light-Cone and the Paneitz …
The Paneitz operator is a dimension-4 conformally invariant fourth-order differential operator that has recently attracted attention for possible cancellations of the vacuum energy. We show that, in four dimensions, the Paneitz operator…
We develop the first steps towards an analysis of geometry on the quantum spacetime proposed in [1]. The homogeneous elements of the universal differential algebra are naturally identified with operators living in tensor powers of Quantum…
These lecture notes review the foundations and some applications of light-cone quantization. First I explain how to choose a time in special relativity. Inclusion of Poincare invariance naturally leads to Dirac's forms of relativistic…
A covariant spin-foam formulation of quantum gravity has been recently developed, characterized by a kinematics which appears to match well the one of canonical loop quantum gravity. In particular, the geometrical observable giving the area…
We discuss the vacuum structure of $\phi^4$-theory in 1+1 dimensions quantised on the light-front $x^+ =0$. To this end, one has to solve a non-linear, operator-valued constraint equation. It expresses that mode of the field operator having…
We study the momentum-space 4-point correlation function of identical scalar operators in conformal field theory. Working specifically with null momenta, we show that its imaginary part admits an expansion in conformal blocks. The blocks…
A phenomenological model is proposed to explain the recent observed cosmological variation of the fine structure constant as an effect of the quantum vacuum, assuming a flat universe with cosmological constant $\Lambda$ in the cases…
The classical Busemann-Petty problem (1956) asks, whether origin-symmetric convex bodies in $\mathbb {R}^n$ with smaller hyperplane central sections necessarily have smaller volumes. It is known, that the answer is affirmative if $n\le 4$…
We discuss some open problems and recent progress related to the 4th order Paneitz operator and Q curvature in dimensions other than 4.
A mathematical conjecture is successfully identified, which is used for relativistic analysis of dielectric Einstein-box thought experiment in a Letter (Ramos, Rubilar, and Obukhov, Phys. Lett. A 375, 1703 (2011)), where the authors…
We consider general relativity with a cosmological constant as a perturbative expansion around a completely solvable diffeomorphism invariant field theory. This theory is the $\Lambda\to\infty$ limit of general relativity. This allows an…
We consider a modification of the standard Einstein theory in four dimensions, alternative to R. Jackiw and S.-Y. Pi, Phys. Rev. D 68, 104012 (2003), since it is based on the first-order (Einstein-Cartan) approach to General Relativity,…
In loop quantum cosmology, the Hamiltonian reduces to a finite difference operator. We study the initial singularity and the large volume limit against the ambiguities in the discretisation and the operator ordering within a homogeneous,…
A common misconception is that Lorentz invariance is inconsistent with a discrete spacetime structure and a minimal length: under Lorentz contraction, a Planck length ruler would be seen as smaller by a boosted observer. We argue that in…
It is natural to ask whether non-commutative geometry plays a role in four dimensional physics. By performing explicit computations in various toy models, we show that quantum effects lead to violations of Lorentz invariance at the level of…
We propose an extension of the recently-proposed volume conjecture for closed hyperbolic 3-manifolds, to all orders in perturbative expansion. We first derive formulas for the perturbative expansion of the partition function of complex…
The Weak Gravity Conjecture has recently been re-formulated in terms of a particle with non-negative self-binding energy. Because of the dual conformal field theory (CFT) formulation in the anti-de Sitter space the conformal dimension…
We use the interpolating coordinates studied by Hornbostel to investigate a transition from equal-time quantization to light-front quantization, in the context of two-dimensional $\phi^4$ theory. A consistent treatment is found to require…
We show that for basically all states, the evolution of the expectation value of the volume operator in Wheeler-DeWitt and various homogenous isotropic loop quantum comology (LQC) models ($k=0$, coupled to massless scalar field and without…
In his calculation of the spacetime volume of a small Alexandrov interval in 4 dimensions Myrheim introduced a term which he referred to as a surface integral [1]. The evaluation of this term has remained opaque and led subsequent authors…