Related papers: Book Review: 'Background Independence in Classical…
The aim of this paper is to explain carefully the arguments behind the assertion that the correct quantum theory of gravity must be background independent. We begin by recounting how the debate over whether quantum gravity must be…
Background independence is often emphasized as an important property of a quantum theory of gravity that takes seriously the geometrical nature of general relativity. In a background-independent formulation, quantum gravity should determine…
This paper concerns what Background Independence itself is (as opposed to some particular physical theory that is background independent). The notions presented mostly arose from a layer-by-layer analysis of the facets of the Problem of…
We discuss the meaning of background independence in quantum theories of gravity where geometry and gravity are emergent and illustrate the possibilities using the framework of quantum causal histories.
We argue that the demand of background independence in a quantum theory of gravity calls for an extension of standard geometric quantum mechanics. We discuss a possible kinematical and dynamical generalization of the latter by way of a…
The history of general relativity suggests that in absence of experimental data, constructing a theory on philosophical first principles can lead to a very useful theory as well as to ground-breaking insights about physical reality. The two…
The goal of this article is to present an introduction to loop quantum gravity -a background independent, non-perturbative approach to the problem of unification of general relativity and quantum physics, based on a quantum theory of…
The questions I have been asked during the 5th International School on Field Theory and Gravitation, have compelled me to give an account of the premises that I consider important for a beginner's approach to Loop Quantum Gravity. After a…
Quantum General Relativity (QGR), sometimes called Loop Quantum Gravity, has matured over the past fifteen years to a mathematically rigorous candidate quantum field theory of the gravitational field. The features that distinguish it from…
We introduce the notion of background independent quantum field theory. The distinguishing feature of this theory is that the dynamics can be formulated without recourse to a background metric structure. We show in a simple model how the…
We recapitulate the scheme of emergent gravity to highlight how a background independent quantum gravity can be defined by quantizing spacetime itself.
Any canonical quantum theory can be understood to arise from the compatibility of the statistical geometry of distinguishable observations with the canonical Poisson structure of Hamiltonian dynamics. This geometric perspective offers a…
The application of quantum theory to gravity is beset with many technical and conceptual problems. After a short tour d'horizon of recent attempts to master those problems by the introduction of new approaches, we show that the aim, a…
Intuitively speaking, a classical field theory is background-independent if the structure required to make sense of its equations is itself subject to dynamical evolution, rather than being imposed ab initio. The aim of this paper is to…
After a long technical and consequently philosophical disgression about the necessity of the construction presented in this book, a logically consistent and precise theory of quantum gravity is presented. The construction of this theory…
One of the biggest challenges to theoretical physics of our time is to find a background-independent quantum theory of gravity. Today one encounters a profusion of different attempts at quantization, but no fully accepted - or acceptable,…
The scale dependent effective average action for quantum gravity complies with the fundamental principle of Background Independence. Ultimately the background metric it formally depends on is selected self-consistently by means of a…
We review quantum causal histories starting with their interpretations as a quantum field theory on a causal set and a quantum geometry. We discuss the difficulties that background independent theories based on quantum geometry encounter in…
This is an essay review of the book by D. Home: "Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Physics: An Overview from Modern Perspectives" (New York: Plenum Press, 1997), xvii+386 pp., ISBN 0-306-45660-5.
Work in progress is described which aims to construct a background independent formulation of M theory by extending results about background independent states and observables from quantum general relativity and supergravity to string…