Related papers: The Small Scale Structure of Spacetime
We study the classical and quantum cosmology of a $(4+d)$-dimensional spacetime minimally coupled to a scalar field and present exact solutions for the resulting field equations for the case where the universe is spatially flat. These…
If quantum gravity implies a fundamental spatiotemporal discreteness, and if its ``laws of motion'' are compatible with the Lorentz transformations, then physics cannot remain local. One might expect this nonlocality to be confined to the…
Following the idea of a field quantization of gravity as realized in group field theory, we construct a minisuperspace model where the wavefunction of canonical quantum cosmology (either Wheeler-DeWitt or loop quantum cosmology) is promoted…
We review recent efforts to construct gravitational theories on discrete space-times, usually referred to as the ``consistent discretization'' approach. The resulting theories are free of constraints at the canonical level and therefore…
It is univocally anticipated that in a theory of quantum gravity, there exist quantum superpositions of semiclassical states of spacetime geometry. Such states could arise for example, from a source mass in a superposition of spatial…
Our conventional system of physical units is based on local or microscopic {\it dimensional} quantities which are {\it defined}, for convenience or otherwise aesthetic reasons, to be spacetime-independent. A more general choice of units may…
The space discreteness hypothesis asserts that the nature of space at short distances is radically different from that at large distances. Based on the Bronstein inequality, here, we use a totally disconnected topological space…
For slowly varying fields the vacuum functional of a quantum field theory may be expanded in terms of local functionals. This expansion satisfies its own form of the Schr\"odinger equation from which the expansion coefficents can be found.…
Witten has presented an argument for the vanishing of the cosmological constant in 2+1 dimensions. This argument is crucially tied to the specific properties of (2+1)-dimensional gravity. We argue that this reasoning can be deconstructed to…
A classical two dimensional theory of gravity which has a number of interesting features (including a Newtonian limit, black holes and gravitational collapse) is quantized using conformal field theoretic techniques. The critical dimension…
On the path towards quantum gravity, we find friction between temporal relations in quantum mechanics (QM) (where they are fixed and field-independent), and in general relativity (where they are field-dependent and dynamic). This paper aims…
The paper concerns the fictitious entanglement of the so-called ``singularities'' in problems, pertaining to quantum gravity, due, in point of fact, to the way we try to employ, in that context, differential geometry, the latter being…
It is generally believed that any quantum theory of gravity should have a generic feature --- a quantum of length. We provide a physical ansatz to obtain an effective non-local metric tensor starting from the standard metric tensor such…
Quantum theories of gravity are generally expected to have some degree of non-locality, with familiar local physics emerging only in a particular limit. Perturbative quantum gravity around backgrounds with isometries and compact Cauchy…
We investigate possible signatures of quantum gravity which could be tested with current and future gravitational-wave (GW) observations. In particular, we analyze how quantum gravity can influence the GW luminosity distance, the time…
In this article we perform the Wheeler-DeWitt quantization for Bianchi type $I$ anisotropic cosmological model in the presence of a scalar field minimally coupled to the Einstein-Hilbert gravity theory. We also consider the cosmological…
Dimensional reduction has proven to be a surprisingly powerful tool for delineating the boundary between the string landscape and the swampland. Bounds from the Weak Gravity Conjecture and the Repulsive Force Conjecture, for instance, are…
We present a discrete form of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation for quantum gravitation, based on the lattice formulation due to Regge. In this setup the infinite-dimensional manifold of 3-geometries is replaced by a space of three-dimensional…
We study a minisuperspace quantum cosmology for a 2+1 dimensional de Sitter universe and find the wave function both exactly and in WKB approximation. Then we extend the model to a canonically quantized field theory for quantum gravity,…
This research aims to develop a new approach toward a consistent coupling of electromagnetic and gravitational fields by using an electron that couples with a weak gravitational potential by means of its electromagnetic field. We find the…