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It is well known that one can parameterize 2-D Riemannian structures by conformal transformations and diffeomorphisms of fiducial constant curvature geometries; and that this construction has a natural setting in general relativity theory…
Local observables in (perturbative) quantum gravity are notoriously hard to define, since the gauge symmetry of gravity -- diffeomorphisms -- moves points on the manifold. In particular, this is a problem for backgrounds of high symmetry…
Chern-Simons invariants of closed oriented Riemannian $3$-manifolds are introduced and studied from the basics. Their first-order variation is the Cotton tensor. The properties of the Cotton tensor: symmetry, conformal covariance, trace-…
Given the Hamiltonian realisation of a topological (3+1)d gauge theory with finite group $G$, we consider a family of tensor network representations of its ground state subspace. This family is indexed by gapped boundary conditions encoded…
We consider various models of three-dimensional gravity with torsion or nonmetricity (metric affine gravity), and show that they can be written as Chern-Simons theories with suitable gauge groups. Using the groups ISO(2,1), SL(2,C) or…
We propose a precise reformulation of 3d quantum gravity with negative cosmological constant in terms of a topological quantum field theory based on the quantization of the Teichm\"uller space of Riemann surfaces that we refer to as…
We present a Lorentzian version of three-dimensional noncommutative Einstein-AdS gravity by making use of the Chern-Simons formulation of pure gravity in 2+1 dimensions. The deformed action contains a real, symmetric metric and a real,…
In this short article accessible for non-experts I discuss possible ways of constructing a non-commutative gravity paying special attention to possibilities of realizing the full diffeomorphism symmetry and to relations with 2D gravities.
In quantum gravity, one looks for alternative structures to spacetime physics than ordinary real manifolds. Here, we propose an alternative universal construction containing the latter as an equilibrium state under the action of the…
We find the set of generalized symmetries associated with the free graviton theory in four dimensions. These are generated by gauge invariant topological operators that violate Haag duality in ring-like regions. As expected from general QFT…
We show that there is an infinite group of special automorphisms of the deformed group of diffeomorphisms, which describes parallel transports in Riemannian spaces of any variable curvature. Generators of translations of such group contain…
We study the general class of gravitational field theories constructed on the basis of scale invariance (and therefore absence of any mass parameters) and invariance under transverse diffeomorphisms (TDiff), which are the 4-volume…
We study three-dimensional gauge theories based on orthogonal groups. Depending on the global form of the group these theories admit discrete $\theta$-parameters, which control the weights in the sum over topologically distinct gauge…
It is well known that in a generally covariant gravitational theory the choice of spacetime scalars as coordinates yields phase-space observables (or "invariants"). However their relation to the symmetry group of diffeomorphism…
It is shown that the topological action for gravity in 2n-dimensions can be obtained from the 2n+1-dimensional Chern-Simons gravity genuinely invariant under the Poincare group. The 2n-dimensional topological gravity is described by the…
The `Generalized Symmetric Teleparallel Gravity' (GSTG) does not admit diffeomorphic invariance, since the auxiliary field as well as the shift vector act as non-propagating dynamical variables carrying 1/2 degrees of freedom each. We show…
The topological non-Abelian Chern-Simons theory with a boundary is shown to require a scalar field companion in order to preserve overall gauge-invariance both in the 3 dimensional manifold, as well as on its boundary. This scalar field,…
The discrete spatial geometry underlying Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) is degenerate almost everywhere. This is at apparent odds with the non- degeneracy of asymptotically flat metrics near spatial infinity. Koslowski generalised the LQG…
We show that topological 3D gravity with torsion can be formulated as a Chern-Simons gauge theory, provided a specific parameter, known as the effective cosmological constant, is negative. In that case, the boundary dynamics of the theory…
To guarantee the stability of the cosmological constant sector against radiative corrections coming from quantum matter fields, one of the most natural ingredients to invoke is the symmetry under scale transformations of the gravitational…