Related papers: Towards effective actions for the continuum limit …

Although spin foams arose as quantizations of the length metric degrees of freedom, the quantum configuration space is rather based on areas as more fundamental variables. This is also highlighted by the semi-classical limit of…

A number of approaches to 4D quantum gravity, such as holography and loop quantum gravity, propose areas instead of lengths as fundamental variables. The Area Regge action, which can be defined for general 4D triangulations, is a natural…

Area metrics are an intriguing generalization of length metrics which appears in several quantum-gravity approaches. We describe the space of diffeomorphism-invariant area-metric actions quadratic in fluctuations and derivatives. A general…

Spin-foam models are hoped to provide a dynamics for loop quantum gravity. These start from the Plebanski formulation of gravity, in which gravity is obtained from a topological field theory, BF theory, through constraints, which, however,…

The most common spin foam models of gravity are widely believed to be discrete path integral quantizations of the Plebanski action. However, their derivation in present formulations is incomplete and lower dimensional simplex amplitudes are…

The goal of this work is two-fold. In the first part of this paper we regard classical Plebanski's action as a BF action supplemented by constraints. We introduce a spin foam model for Riemannian general relativity by systematically…

We define an effective action for spin foam models of quantum gravity by adapting the background field method from quantum field theory. We show that the Regge action is the leading term in the semi-classical expansion of the spin foam…

The Spin Foam approach to quantum gravity aims at providing a covariant path-integral formulation of canonical Loop Quantum Gravity. Since spin foam amplitudes are defined through discretisations of spacetime, understanding the continuum…

Spin foam models of quantum gravity are based on Plebanski's formulation of general relativity as a constrained BF theory. We give an alternative formulation of gravity as BF theory plus a certain potential term for the B-field. When the…

Spin foam models for quantum gravity are derived from lattice path integrals. The setting involves variables from both lattice BF theory and Regge calculus. The action consists in a Regge action, which depends on areas, dihedral angles and…

We study a generalized action for gravity as a constrained BF theory, and its relationship with the Plebanski action. We analyse the discretization of the constraints and the spin foam quantization of the theory, showing that it leads…

We study a unification of gravity with Yang-Mills fields based on a simple extension of the Plebanski action to a Lie group G which contains the local lorentz group. The Coleman-Mandula theorem is avoided because the theory has no global…

This article reviews the present status of the spin foam approach to the quantization of gravity. Special attention is payed to the pedagogical presentation of the recently introduced new models for four dimensional quantum gravity. The…

It was recently noted that the on-shell Einstein-Hilbert action with York-Gibbons-Hawking boundary term has an imaginary part, proportional to the area of the codimension-2 surfaces on which the boundary normal becomes null. We discuss the…

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 vertex amplitudes are the key ingredient of spin foam models for quantum gravity. These fall into the realm of discretized path integral, and can be seen as generalized lattice gauge theories. They can be seen as an attempt at a…

We introduce a three-dimensional Plebanski action for the gauge group SO(4). In this model, the $B$ field satisfies quadratic simplicity constraints similar to that of the four-dimensional Plebanski theory, but with the difference that the…

We review the relation between Loop Quantum Gravity on a fixed graph and discrete models of gravity. We compare Regge and twisted geometries, and discuss discrete actions based on twisted geometries and on the discretization of the…

A classical foundation for an idea of reality condition in the context of spin foams (Barrett-Crane models) is developed. I extract classical real general relativity (all signatures) from complex general relativity by imposing the area…

We report on the numerical analysis of the area correlations in spin foam gravity on a single 4-simplex considered by Rovelli in PRL 97 (2006) 151301. We compare the asymptotics and confirm the inverse squared distance leading behaviour at…