Related papers: Topology change in classical and quantum gravity
We use the mathematical framework of loop quantum gravity (LQG) to study the quantization of three dimensional (Riemannian) gravity with positive cosmological constant (Lambda>0). We show that the usual regularization techniques (successful…
The geometric foundations of General Relativity are revisited, with particular attention to its gauge invariance, as a key to understanding the true nature of spacetime. Beyond the common image of spacetime as a deformable 'fabric' filling…
Quantum General Relativity (QGR), sometimes called Loop Quantum Gravity, has matured over the past fifteen years to a mathematically rigorous candidate quantum field theory of the gravitational field. The features that distinguish it from…
Duality transformations within the quantum mechanics of a finite number of degrees of freedom can be regarded as the dependence of the notion of a quantum, i.e., an elementary excitation of the vacuum, on the observer on classical phase…
The canonical theory of quantum gravity in the loop representation can be extended to incorporate topology change, in the simple case that this refers to the creation or annihilation of "minimalist wormholes" in which two points of the…
Any two infinite-dimensional (separable) Hilbert spaces are unitarily isomorphic. The sets of all their self-adjoint operators are also therefore unitarily equivalent. Thus if all self-adjoint operators can be observed, and if there is no…
The inclusion of a flat metric tensor in gravitation permits the formulation of a gravitational stress-energy tensor and the formal derivation of general relativity from a linear theory in flat spacetime. Building on the works of Kraichnan…
We consider classical and quantum dynamics of a free particle in de Sitter's space-times with different topologies to see what happens to space-time singularities of removable type in quantum theory. We find analytic solution of the…
We introduce a new methodology to characterize properties of quantum spacetime in a strongly quantum-fluctuating regime, using tools from topological data analysis. Starting from a microscopic quantum geometry, generated nonperturbatively…
We investigate the motion of test particles in quantum-gravitational backgrounds by introducing the concept of q--desics, quantum-corrected analogs of classical geodesics. Unlike standard approaches that rely solely on the expectation value…
In the recently introduced gauge theory of translations, dubbed Coincident General Relativity, gravity is described with neither torsion nor curvature in the spacetime affine geometry. The action of the theory enjoys an enhanced symmetry…
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…
We construct the quartic version of generalized quasi-topological gravity, which was recently constructed to cubic order in arXiv: 1703.01631. This class of theories includes Lovelock gravity and a known form of quartic quasi-topological…
We develop a systematic classical framework to accommodate canonical quantization of geometric and matter perturbations on a quantum homogeneous isotropic flat spacetime. The existing approach of standard cosmological perturbations is…
Cosmological perturbations are generally described by quantum fields on (curved but) classical space-times. While this strategy has a large domain of validity, it can not be justified in the quantum gravity era where curvature and matter…
This survey paper is divided into two parts. In the first (section 2), I give a brief account of the structure of classical relativity theory. In the second (section 3), I discuss three special topics: (i) the status of the relative…
A new numerical framework, based on the use of a simple first order strongly hyperbolic evolution equations, is introduced and tested in case of 4-dimensional spherically symmetric gravitating systems. The analytic setup is chosen such that…
The two-dimensional theory of gravity describing a graviton-dilaton system is considered. The graviton-dilaton coupling can be fixed such that the quantum theory remains free of the conformal anomaly for any conformal dimension of the…
If gravity respects quantum mechanics, it is important to identify the essential postulates of a quantum framework capable of incorporating gravitational phenomena. Such a construct likely requires elimination or modification of some of the…
In an extension of speculations that physical space-time is a fractal which might itself be embedded in a high-dimensional continuum, it is hypothesized to "compensate" for local variations of the fractal dimension by instead varying the…