Related papers: Big-Bang is a Boundary Condition
Despite its importance in general relativity, a quantum notion of general covariance has not yet been established in quantum gravity and cosmology, where, given the a priori absence of coordinates, it is necessary to replace classical…
When quantum gravity is used to discuss the big bang singularity, the most important, though rarely addressed, question is what role genuine quantum degrees of freedom play. Here, complete effective equations are derived for isotropic…
Determining the initial state of the universe is a challenging problem in quantum cosmology and we argue that the issue is intractable if the basic postulates of quantum mechanics are not modified in a nontrivial way. Namely a "standard"…
We consider a spatially homogeneous and isotropic system of Dirac particles coupled to classical gravity. The dust and radiation dominated closed Friedmann-Robertson-Walker space-times are recovered as limiting cases. We find a mechanism…
A quantum theory of gravity is described in the case of a positive cosmological constant in 3+1 dimensions. Both old and new results are described, which support the case that loop quantum gravity provides a satisfactory quantum theory of…
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…
We determine the inner product on the Hilbert space of wavefunctions of the universe by imposing the Hermiticity of the quantum Hamiltonian in the context of the minisuperspace model. The corresponding quantum probability density reproduces…
For many years, the most active area of quantum cosmology has been the issue of choosing boundary conditions for the wave function of a universe. Recently, loop quantum cosmology, which is obtained from loop quantum gravity, has shed new…
We consider a contracting universe and its transition to expansion through the big bang singularity with a time varying equation of state $w$, where $w$ approaches $1$ as the universe contracts to the big bang. We show that this singularity…
We numerically study the dual field theory evolution of five-dimensional asymptotically anti-de Sitter solutions of supergravity that develop cosmological singularities. The dual theory is an unstable deformation of the N = 4 gauge theory…
Physical spacetime geometry follows from some effective thermodynamics of quantum states of all fields and particles described in frames of General Relativity. In the sense of pure field theoretical Einstein's point of view on gravitation…
Building upon our recently established correspondence between quantum cosmology and the hydrogen atom [1], we investigate the specific sector of a negative cosmological constant ($\Lambda < 0$) in a flat FLRW universe with dust. While the…
A consistent implementation of quantum gravity is expected to change the familiar notions of space, time and the propagation of matter in drastic ways. This will have consequences on very small scales, but also gives rise to correction…
We write down a quantum gravity equation which generalizes the Wheeler-DeWitt one in view of including a time dependence in the wave functional. The obtained equation provides a consistent canonical quantization of the 3-geometries…
The question of possible physics before Big Bang (or after Big Crunch) is addressed via a schematic non-covariant simulation of the loss of observability of the Universe. Our model is drastically simplified by the reduction of its degrees…
We consider quantization of the gravity-scalar field system in the minisuperspace approximation. It turns out that in the gauge fixed deparametrized theory where the scale factor plays the role of time, the Hamiltonian can be uniquely…
A way of constructing mathematically correct quantum geometrodynamics of a closed universe is presented. The resulting theory appears to be gauge-noninvariant and thus consistent with the observation conditions of a closed universe, by that…
The unitary crisis for black holes indicates an apparent need to modify local quantum field theory. This paper explores the idea that quantum mechanics and in particular unitarity are fundamental principles, but at the price of familiar…
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…
We study de Sitter JT gravity in the canonical formulation to illustrate constructions of Hilbert spaces in quantum gravity, which is challenging due to the Hamiltonian constraints. The key ideas include representing states as "invariants"…