Related papers: Degenerate Plebanski Sector and Spin Foam Quantiza…
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…
Spin foam models are an attempt for a covariant, or path integral formulation of canonical loop quantum gravity. The construction of such models usually rely on the Plebanski formulation of general relativity as a constrained BF theory and…
Spin foam models for gravity or BF theory can be constructed by path integral formulation of the classical discrete models formulated on simplicial manifolds. Using this, we discuss the rigorous construction of Lorentzian spin foam models…
In this article we review the present status of the spin foam formulation of non-perturbative (background independent) quantum gravity. The article is divided in two parts. In the first part we present a general introduction to the main…
A lattice quantum gravity model in 4 dimensional Riemannian spacetime is constructed based on the SU(2) Ashtekar formulation of general relativity. This model can be understood as one of the family of models sometimes called ``spin foam…
We study the state-sum models of quantum gravity based on a representation 2-category of the Poincare 2-group. We call them spin-cube models, since they are categorical generalizations of spin-foam models. A spin-cube state sum can be…
Spin foam models, an approach to defining the dynamics of loop quantum gravity, make use of the Plebanski formulation of gravity, in which gravity is recovered from a topological field theory via certain constraints called simplicity…
We suggest a modification of the Barrett-Crane spin foam model of 4-dimensional Lorentzian general relativity motivated by the canonical quantization. The starting point is Lorentz covariant loop quantum gravity. Its kinematical Hilbert…
A number of approaches to four-dimensional quantum gravity, such as loop quantum gravity and holography, situate areas as their fundamental variables. However, this choice of kinematics can easily lead to gravitational dynamics peaked on…
It is well known that, in the first-order formalism, pure three-dimensional gravity is just the BF theory. Similarly, four-dimensional general relativity can be formulated as BF theory with an additional constraint term added to the…
We give a general definition of spin foam models, and then of models of 4d quantum gravity based on constraining BF theory. We highlight the construction and quantization ambiguities entering model building, among which the choice of…
We describe here some new results concerning the Lorentzian Barrett-Crane model, a well-known spin foam formulation of quantum gravity. Generalizing an existing finiteness result, we provide a concise proof of finiteness of the partition…
We construct the q-deformed version of two four-dimensional spin foam models, the Euclidean and Lorentzian versions of the EPRL model. The q-deformed models are based on the representation theory of two copies of U_q(su(2)) at a root of…
We propose a spin foam model for pure gauge fields coupled to Riemannian quantum gravity in four dimensions. The model is formulated for the triangulation of a four-manifold which is given merely combinatorially. The Riemannian…
In the first-order formulation, general relativity could be formally viewed as the topological $BF$ theory with a specific constraint, the Plebanski constraint. $BF$ theory is expected to be the classical limit of the Crane-Yetter~(CY)…
We consider quantum transition amplitudes, partition functions and observables for 3D spin foam models within $SU(2)$ quantum group deformation symmetry, where the deformation parameter is a complex fifth root of unity. By considering…
In 4 dimensions, general relativity can be formulated as a constrained $BF$ theory; we show that the same is true in 2 dimensions. We describe a spinfoam quantization of this constrained BF-formulation of 2d riemannian general relativity,…
We show how Feynman amplitudes of standard QFT on flat and homogeneous space can naturally be recast as the evaluation of observables for a specific spin foam model, which provides dynamics for the background geometry. We identify the…
The U(1)$^3$ model for 3+1 Euclidian signature general relativity is an interacting, generally covariant field theory with two physical polarisations that shares many features of Lorentzian general relativity. In particular, it displays a…
We revise imposition of various constraints in spin foam models of 4-dimensional general relativity. We argue that the usual simplicity constraint must be supplemented by a constraint on holonomies and together they must be inserted…