Related papers: Holonomy Spin Foam Models: Definition and Coarse G…
We undertake first steps in making a class of discrete models of quantum gravity, spin foams, accessible to a large scale analysis by numerical and computational methods. In particular, we apply Migdal-Kadanoff and Tensor Network…
It has been recently shown that a certain non-topological spin foam model can be obtained from the Feynman expansion of a field theory over a group. The field theory defines a natural ``sum over triangulations'', which removes the cut off…
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…
Loop quantum gravity has provided us with a canonical framework especially devised for background independent and diffeomorphism invariant gauge field theories. In this quantization the fundamental excitations are called spin network…
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…
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…
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…
The spin foam framework provides a way to define the dynamics of canonical loop quantum gravity in a spacetime covariant way, by using a path integral over histories of quantum states which can be interpreted as `quantum space-times'. This…
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…
Spin foams provide path integrals for quantum gravity, which employ discretizations as regulator. To obtain regulator independent predictions, we must remove these fiducial structures in a suitable refinement limit. In this chapter we…
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 this paper we reconsider the implementation of the…
In a seminal paper, Kaminski, Kisielowski an Lewandowski for the first time extended the definition of spin foam models to arbitrary boundary graphs. This is a prerequisite in order to make contact to the canonical formulation of Loop…
The transfer matrix in lattice field theory connects the covariant and the initial data frameworks; in spin foam models, it can be written as a composition of elementary cellular amplitudes/propagators. We present a framework for discrete…
We construct the holonomy-flux operator algebra in the recently developed spinor formulation of loop gravity. We show that, when restricting to SU(2)-gauge invariant operators, the familiar grasping and Wilson loop operators are written as…
The goal of this paper is to introduce a systematic approach to spin foams. We define operator spin foams, that is foams labelled by group representations and operators, as the main tool. An equivalence relation we impose in the set of the…
Numerical methods in spin-foam models have significantly advanced in the last few years, yet challenges remain in efficiently extracting results for amplitudes with many quantum degrees of freedom. In this paper we sketch a proposal for a…
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…
Spinfoam models provide a covariant formulation of the dynamics of loop quantum gravity. They are non-perturbatively defined in the group field theory (GFT) framework: the GFT partition function defines the sum of spinfoam transition…
This thesis is devoted to the study of 3-dimensional quantum gravity as a spin foam model and group field theory. In the first part of this thesis, we review some general physical and mathematical aspects of 3-dimensional gravity, focusing…
Spinorial tools have recently come back to fashion in loop gravity and spin foams. They provide an elegant tool relating the standard holonomy-flux algebra to the twisted geometry picture of the classical phase space on a fixed graph, and…