Related papers: Casting Loop Quantum Cosmology in the Spin Foam Pa…
Quantum cosmology has traditionally been studied at the level of symmetry-reduced minisuperspace models, analyzing the behavior of wave functions. However, in the absence of a complete full setting of quantum gravity and detailed knowledge…
Spin foam models are a new approach to a formulation of quantum gravity which is fully background independent, non-perturbative, and covariant, in the spirit of path integral formulations of quantum field theory. In this thesis we describe…
Spacetime foam is analyzed within the simplistic model of a set of scalar fields on a flat background. We suggest the formula for the path integral which allows to account for the all possible topologies of spacetime. We show that the…
This introductory review is addressed to beginning researchers. Some of the distinguishing features of loop quantum gravity are illustrated through loop quantum cosmology of FRW models. In particular, these examples illustrate: i) how…
We review aspects of loop quantum gravity and spin foam models at an introductory level, with special attention to questions frequently asked by non-specialists.
This series of lectures gives a simple and self-contained introduction to the non-perturbative and background independent loop approach of canonical quantum gravity. The Hilbert space of kinematical quantum states is constructed and a…
Over the last three years, a number of fundamental physical issues were addressed in loop quantum gravity. These include: A statistical mechanical derivation of the horizon entropy, encompassing astrophysically interesting black holes as…
Spin foam models are the path integral counterparts to loop quantized canonical theories. In the last few years several spin foam models of gravity have been proposed, most of which live on finite simplicial lattice spacetime. The lattice…
Despite its great successes in accounting for the current observations, the so called `standard' model of cosmology faces a number of fundamental unresolved questions. Paramount among these are those relating to the nature of the origin of…
The framework of quantum symmetry reduction is applied to loop quantum gravity with respect to transitively acting symmetry groups. This allows to test loop quantum gravity in a large class of minisuperspaces and to investigate its features…
Making the Lorentzian path integral for quantum gravity well-defined and computable has been a long standing challenge. In this work we adopt the recently proposed effective spin foam models to the Lorentzian case. This defines a path…
I review the formalism of loop quantum gravity, in both its real and complex formulations, and spin foam theory which is its path integral counterpart. Spin networks for non-compact groups are introduced (following hep-th/0205268) to deal…
Quantum gravity is expected to be necessary in order to understand situations where classical general relativity breaks down. In particular in cosmology one has to deal with initial singularities, i.e. the fact that the backward evolution…
Suppose the usual description of spacetime as a 4-dimensional manifold with a Lorentzian metric breaks down at Planck energies. Can we still construct sensible theoretical models of the universe? Are they testable? Do they lead to a…
The fundamental theory and the semiclassical description of loop quantum cosmology (LQC) have been studied in the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker and Bianchi I models. As an extension to include both anisotropy and intrinsic curvature, this…
In the path integral formulation of the reduced phase space Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG), we propose a new approach to allow the spatial cubic lattice (graph) to change dynamically in the physical time evolution. The equations of motion of…
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…
The Spin Foam approach to quantum gravity aims at providing a covariant path-integral formulation of canonical Loop Quantum Gravity. Since spin foam amplitudes are defined through discretisations of spacetime, understanding the continuum…
The appearance of the big bounce (BB) in the evolution of the universe is analyzed in the setting of loop quantum cosmology (LQC). Making use of an idea of a minimum length turns classical Big Bang into BB. We argue why the spectrum of the…
Solvable loop quantum cosmology provides a simple model of spatially flat, homogeneous, and isotropic quantum cosmology where the initial singularity is resolved. A close inspection of the literature reveals that there exist two different…