Related papers: Topology and Volume Effects in Quantum Gravity: Wh…
We consider two-dimensional quantum gravity endowed with a positive cosmological constant and coupled to a conformal field theory of large and positive central charge. We study cosmological properties at the classical and quantum level. We…
By regarding the vacuum as a perfect fluid with equation of state p=-rho, de Sitter's cosmological model is quantized. Our treatment differs from previous ones in that it endows the vacuum with dynamical degrees of freedom. Instead of being…
We consider a renormalizable two-dimensional model of dilaton gravity coupled to a set of conformal fields as a toy model for quantum cosmology. We discuss the cosmological solutions of the model and study the effect of including the…
In this paper, we address a foundational challenge in quantum field theory on curved spacetime by developing a consistent framework within loop quantum gravity. We introduce a methodology for defining meaningful superpositions of quantum…
We analyze the constraints of general coordinate invariance for quantum theories possessing conformal symmetry in four dimensions. The character of these constraints simplifies enormously on the Einstein universe $R \times S^3$. The…
The Bohm-de Broglie interpretation of quantum mechanics is applied to canonical quantum cosmology. It is shown that, irrespective of any regularization or choice of factor ordering of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, the unique relevant quantum…
Quantum geometrodynamics is canonical quantum gravity with the three-metric as the configuration variable. Its central equation is the Wheeler--DeWitt equation. Here I give an overview of the status of this approach. The issues discussed…
In this paper we will make a survey of solutions to the Wheeler-Dewitt equation which have been found up to now in Ashtekar's formulation for canonical quantum gravity. Roughly speaking they are classified into two categories, namely,…
A key test of any quantum theory of gravity is its ability to reproduce the known thermodynamic properties of black holes. A statistical mechanical description of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy once seemed remote, but today we suffer an…
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…
The problem of topology change transitions in quantum gravity is investigated from the Wheeler-de Witt wave function point of view. It is argued that for all theories allowing wormhole effects the wave function of the universe is…
We propose an operator constraint equation for the wavefunction of the Universe that admits genuine evolution. While the corresponding classical theory is equivalent to the canonical decomposition of General Relativity, the quantum theory…
In this topical review we discuss the connections between chaos, decoherence and quantum cosmology. We understand chaos as classical chaos in systems with a finite number of degrees of freedom, decoherence as environment induced decoherence…
We explore the symmetry reduced form of a non-perturbative solution to the constraints of quantum gravity corresponding to quantum de Sitter space. The system has a remarkably precise analogy with the non-relativistic formulation of a…
In the minisuperspace models of quantum cosmology, the absence of time in the Wheeler-DeWitt (constraint) equation, is the main point leading to the generally accepted conclusion that in the quantum cosmology there is no possibility to…
We discuss the problem of time in spherically symmetric pure Einstein gravity with the cosmological term by using an exact solution to the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. A positive definite inner product is defined, based on the momentum…
The different roles and natures of spacetime appearing in a quantum field theory and in classical physics are analyzed implying that a quantum theory of gravitation is not necessarily a quantum theory of curved spacetime. Developing an…
We calculate deviations in cosmological observables as a function of parameters in a class of connection-based models of quantum gravity. In this theory non-trivial modifications to the background cosmology can occur due to a distortion of…
Within the framework of symmetric teleparallel $f\left( Q\right) $-gravity for a connection defined in the non-coincidence gauge we derive the Wheeler-DeWitt equation of quantum cosmology. Because the gravitational field equation in…
It is the goal of this article to extend the notion of quantization from the standard interpretation focused on non-commuting observables defined starting from classical analogues, to the topological equivalents defined in terms of…