Related papers: The BKL scenario, infrared renormalization, and qu…
By means of simple models in a flat spacetime manifold we examine some of the issues that arise when quantizing interacting quantum fields in multi-metric backgrounds. In particular we investigate the maintenance of a causal structure in…
The current understanding of renormalization in quantum gravity (QG) is based on the fact that UV divergences of effective actions in the covariant QG models are covariant local expressions. This fundamental statement plays a central role…
So called "analogue models" use condensed matter systems (typically hydrodynamic) to set up an "effective metric" and to model curved-space quantum field theory in a physical system where all the microscopic degrees of freedom are well…
Advantages of inhomogeneous cosmological models that are exact solutions of Einstein's equations over linearised perturbations of homogeneous models are presented. Examples of effects that can be described in the inhomogeneous ones are…
A plausible physical interpretation of the renormalizability condition is given. It is shown that renormalizable quantum field theories describe such systems wherein the tendency to collapse associated with vacuum fluctuations of attractive…
We review the question of whether the fundamental laws of nature limit our ability to probe arbitrarily short distances. First, we examine what insights can be gained from thought experiments for probes of shortest distances, and summarize…
The "improved dynamics" of loop quantum cosmology is extended to include anisotropies of the Bianchi I model. As in the isotropic case, a massless scalar field serves as a relational time parameter. However, the extension is non-trivial…
We discuss the possible appearance of several rather exotic phenomena in quantum gravity, including UV/IR mixing, novel modifications of infrared phenomenology that extend effective field theory approaches, and the relaxation of the usual…
In physics, two systems that radically differ at short scales can exhibit strikingly similar macroscopic behaviour: they are part of the same long-distance universality class. Here we apply this viewpoint to geometry and initiate a program…
Recently, spatially inhomogeneous cosmological models have been proposed as an alternative to the LCDM model, with the aim of reproducing the late time dynamics of the Universe without introducing a cosmological constant or dark energy.…
Degenerate geometrical configurations in quantum gravity are important to understand if the fate of classical singularities is to be revealed. However, not all degenerate configurations arise on an equal footing, and one must take into…
Much of the foundational work on quantum cosmology employs a simple minisuperspace model describing a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe containing a massive scalar field. We show that the classical limit of this model exhibits…
A class of $k$-Essence cosmological models, with a power law kinetic term, is quantised in the mini-superspace. It is shown that for a specific configuration, corresponding to a pressureless fluid, a Schr\"odinger-type equation is obtained…
One way to understand more about spacetime singularities is to construct solutions of the Einstein equations containing singularities with prescribed properties. The heuristic ideas of the BKL picture suggest that oscillatory singularities…
We propose a model of quantum gravity in arbitrary dimensions defined in terms of the BV quantization of a supersymmetric, infinite dimensional matrix model. This gives an (AKSZ-type) Chern-Simons theory with gauge algebra the space of…
A new law of physics is proposed, defined on the cosmological scale but with significant implications for the microscale. Motivated by nonlinear dynamical systems theory and black-hole thermodynamics, the Invariant Set Postulate proposes…
The existence of a fundamental scale, a lower bound to any output of a position measurement, seems to be a model-independent feature of quantum gravity. In fact, different approaches to this theory lead to this result. The key ingredients…
In this paper we study a class of inhomogeneous cosmological models which is a modified version of what is usually called the Lema\^itre-Tolman model. We assume that we have a space with 2-dimensional locally homogeneous spacelike surfaces.…
A new approach is suggested which allows to describe phenomenologically arbitrary topologies of the Universe. It consists in a generalizaton of third quantization. This quantization is carried out for the case of asymptotic closeness to a…
In this article we perform von Neumann analysis of the difference equations that arise as a result of loop quantum gravity being applied to models of cosmology and black holes. In particular, we study the numerical stability of Bianchi I…