Related papers: Topology and Volume Effects in Quantum Gravity: Wh…
A central aspect of the cosmological constant problem is to understand why vacuum energy does not gravitate. In order to account for this observation, while allowing for nontrivial dynamics of the quantum vacuum, we motivate a novel…
We study the quantum mechanics of self-gravitating thin shell collapse by solving the polymerized Wheeler-DeWitt equation. We obtain the energy spectrum and solve the time dependent equation using numerics. In contradistinction to the…
We construct in this article a new realization of quantum geometry, which is obtained by quantizing the recently-introduced flux formulation of loop quantum gravity. In this framework, the vacuum is peaked on flat connections, and states…
We consider the quantization of the midi-superspace associated with a class of spacetimes with toroidal isometries, but without the compact spatial hypersurfaces of the well-known Gowdy models. By a symmetry reduction, the phase space for…
This thesis contains an analysis of the problem of time in quantum cosmology and its application to a cosmological minisuperspace model. In the first part, we introduce the problem of time and the theoretical foundations. In the second…
The two-component formalism in quantum cosmology is revisited with a particular emphasis on the identification of time. Its relation with the appearance of imaginary eigenvalues is established. It is explicitly shown how a good choice of…
We consider minisuperspace models constituted of Bianchi I geometries with a free massless scalar field. The classical solutions are always singular (with the trivial exception of flat space-time), and always anisotropic once they begin…
The paper addresses the quantization of minisuperspace cosmological models by studying a possible solution to the problem of time and time asymmetries in quantum cosmology. Since General Relativity does not have a privileged time variable…
In quantum cosmology, one has to select a specific wave function solution of the quantum state equations under consideration in order to obtain concrete results. The simplest choices have been already explored, in different frameworks,…
In a previous effort [arXiv:1708.05492] we have created a framework that explains why topological structures naturally arise within a scientific theory; namely, they capture the requirements of experimental verification. This is…
We apply a recent proposal for defining states and observables in quantum gravity to simple models. First, we consider a Klein-Gordon particle in an ex- ternal potential in Minkowski space and compare our proposal to the theory ob- tained…
It was previously argued that the phenomenon of quantum gravitational decoherence described by the Wheeler-DeWitt equation is responsible for the emergence of the arrow of time. Here we show that the characteristic spatio-temporal scales of…
The issue of black hole entropy is reexamined within a finite lattice framework along the lines of Wheeler, 't Hooft and Susskind, with an additional criterion to identify physical horizon states contributing to the entropy. As a…
We start from classical Hamiltonian constraint of general relativity to obtain the Einstein-Hamiltonian-Jacobi equation. We obtain a time parameter prescription demanding that geometry itself determines the time, not the matter field, such…
We study the quantization of spherically symmetric vacuum spacetimes within loop quantum gravity. In particular, we give additional details about our previous work in which we showed that one could complete the quantization the model and…
We describe a deformation of the observable algebra of quantum gravity in which the loop algebra is extended to framed loops. This allows an alternative nonperturbative quantization which is suitable for describing a phase of quantum…
We study the quantum cosmology of a quadratic $f(R)$ theory with a FRW metric, via one of its equivalent Horndeski type actions, where the dynamics of the scalar field is induced. The classical equations of motion and the Weeler-deWitt…
We explain how quantum gravity can be defined by quantizing spacetime itself. A pinpoint is that the gravitational constant G = L_P^2 whose physical dimension is of (length)^2 in natural unit introduces a symplectic structure of spacetime…
The quantum description of time evolution in non-linear gravitational systems such as cosmological space-times is not well understood. We show, in the simplified setting of mini-superspace, that time evolution of this system can be obtained…
The problem of topology change description in gravitation theory is analized in detailes. It is pointed out that in standard four-dimensional theories the topology of space may be considered as a particular case of boundary conditions (or…