Related papers: Diffeomorphism invariant tensor networks for 3d gr…
In the canonical quantization of gravity in terms of the Ashtekar variables one uses paths in the 3-space to construct the quantum states. Usually, one restricts oneself to families of paths admitting only finite number of isolated…
Holographic tensor networks model AdS/CFT, but so far they have been limited by involving only systems that are very different from gravity. Unfortunately, we cannot straightforwardly discretize gravity to incorporate it, because that would…
In recent years, the import of quantum information techniques in quantum gravity opened new perspectives in the study of the microscopic structure of spacetime. We contribute to such a program by establishing a precise correspondence…
Given a symmetry group acting on a principal fibre bundle, symmetric states of the quantum theory of a diffeomorphism invariant theory of connections on this fibre bundle are defined. These symmetric states, equipped with a scalar product…
We propose a simple connection between matrix quantum mechanics and tensor networks. This allows us to imbue tensor networks with some interesting additional structure. The geometry of the graph describing the tensor network state is…
A Chern-Simons theory in 11 dimensions, which is a piece of the 11 dimensional supergravity action, is considered as a quantum field theory in its own right. We conjecture that it defines a non-perturbative phase of M theory in which the…
The notion of a measure on the space of connections modulo gauge transformations that is invariant under diffeomorphisms of the base manifold is important in a variety of contexts in mathematical physics and topology. At the formal level,…
Two sets of spatially diffeomorphism invariant operators are constructed in the loop representation formulation of quantum gravity. This is done by coupling general relativity to an anti- symmetric tensor gauge field and using that field to…
We study the issue of diffeomorphism symmetry in group field theories (GFT), using the recently introduced noncommutative metric representation. In the colored Boulatov model for 3d gravity, we identify a field (quantum) symmetry which ties…
We generalize the idea of Vassiliev invariants to the spin network context, with the aim of using these invariants as a kinematical arena for a canonical quantization of gravity. This paper presents a detailed construction of these…
We extend the theory of diffeomorphism-invariant spin network states from the real-analytic category to the smooth category. Suppose that G is a compact connected semisimple Lie group and P -> M is a smooth principal G-bundle. A `cylinder…
The issue of how to deal with the modular transformations -- large diffeomorphisms -- in (2+1)-quantum gravity on the torus is discussed. I study the Chern-Simons/connection representation and show that the behavior of the modular…
Minimally modified gravity theories are modifications of general relativity with two local gravitational degrees of freedom in four dimensions. Their construction relies on the breaking of 4D diffeomorphism invariance keeping however the…
We study the cosmological implications of gravity models which break diffeomorphisms (Diff) invariance down to transverse diffeomorphisms (TDiff). We start from the most general gravitational action involving up to quadratic terms in…
We show that Vassiliev invariants of knots, appropriately generalized to the spin network context, are loop differentiable in spite of being diffeomorphism invariant. This opens the possibility of defining rigorously the constraints of…
We discuss diffeomorphism and gauge invariant theories in three dimensions motivated by the fact that some models of interest do not have a suitable action description yet. The construction is based on a canonical representation of symmetry…
A simple diffeomorphism invariant theory of connections with the non-compact structure group R of real numbers is quantized. The theory is defined on a four-dimensional 'space-time' by an action resembling closely the self-dual Plebanski…
We investigate the construction of coherent states for quantum theories of connections based on graphs embedded in a spatial manifold, as in loop quantum gravity. We discuss the many subtleties of the construction, mainly related to the…
We investigate the action of diffeomorphisms in the context of Hamiltonian Gravity. By considering how the diffeomorphism-invariant Hilbert space of Loop Quantum Gravity should be constructed, we formulate a physical principle by demanding,…
We apply the ``consistent discretization'' approach to general relativity leaving the spatial slices continuous. The resulting theory is free of the diffeomorphism and Hamiltonian constraints, but one can impose the diffeomorphism…