Related papers: Note on KSW-allowability of Wine-Glass Geometry
Kontsevich and Segal (K-S) have proposed a criterion to determine which complex metrics should be allowed, based on the requirement that quantum field theories may consistently be defined on these metrics, and Witten has recently suggested…
We study the Kontsevich-Segal-Witten criterion for allowable complex metrics, in the context of the gravitational path integral corresponding to the supersymmetric index. In various theories of supergravity in asymptotically flat and…
We show that the Kontsevich-Segal-Witten (KSW) criterion applied to the no-boundary state constrains anisotropic deformations of de Sitter space. We consider squashed $S^3$ and $S^1 \times S^2$ boundaries and find that in both models, the…
We study a generalization of the "shear-free part" of the Goldberg-Sachs theorem for Einstein spacetimes admitting a non-twisting multiple Weyl Aligned Null Direction (WAND) l in n>=6 spacetime dimensions. The form of the corresponding…
We investigate (2+1)-dimensional gravity in a Weyl integrable spacetime (WIST). We show that, unlike general relativity, this scalar-tensor theory has a Newtonian limit for any dimension and that in three dimensions the congruence of world…
Complex metrics are a double-edged sword: they allow one to replace singular spacetimes, such as those containing a big bang, with regular metrics, yet they can also describe unphysical solutions in which quantum transitions may be more…
We present an algebraic classification, based on the null alignment properties of the Weyl tensor, of the general Kundt class of spacetimes in arbitrary dimension for which the non-expanding, non-twisting, shear-free null direction \boldk…
We analyse a variety of Euclidean saddles in the gravitational path integral, with asymptotic AdS boundary conditions, in a class of Einstein-Scalar-Maxwell models. These include single boundary solutions, usual and wineglass wormholes, as…
The aim of this memoir for "Habilitation \`a Diriger des Recherches" is to present quantum geometric and algebraic aspects of supersymmetric gauge theory, which emerge from non-perturbative nature of the vacuum structure induced by…
We find a number of complex solutions of the Einstein equations in the so-called unimodular version of general relativity, and we interpret them as saddle points yielding estimates of a gravitational path integral over a space of almost…
An extension to higher dimensions of the Bel-Debever characterization of the Weyl tensor is considered. This provides algebraic conditions that uniquely determine the multiplicity of a Weyl aligned null direction (WAND), and thus the…
We construct a model of quantum gravity in which dimension, topology and geometry of spacetime are dynamical. The microscopic degree of freedom is a real rectangular matrix whose rows label internal flavours, and columns label spatial…
We discuss a fine-tuning of rather generic three dimensional higher-curvature gravity actions that leads to gauge symmetry enhancement at the linearized level via partial masslessness. Requiring this gauge symmetry to be present also…
We study the geometry of Euclidean instantons in loop quantum cosmology (LQC) such as those relevant for the no-boundary proposal. Confining ourselves to the simplest case of a cosmological constant in minisuperspace cosmologies, we analyze…
In more than four spacetime dimensions, a multiple Weyl-aligned null direction (WAND) need not be geodesic. It is proved that any higher-dimensional Einstein spacetime admitting a non-geodesic multiple WAND also admits a geodesic multiple…
We study quantum field theories with boundary by utilizing non-invertible symmetries. We consider three kinds of boundary conditions of the four dimensional $\mathbb{Z}_2$ lattice gauge theory at the critical point as examples. The weights…
This thesis explores the thermodynamics of the cosmological horizon, aiming to make progress towards a better understanding of the microscopic nature of its entropy. We utilise the constrained nature of low-dimensional gravity to do so and…
Due to the conformal factor problem, the definition of the Euclidean gravitational path integral requires a non-trivial choice of contour. The present work examines a generalization of a recently proposed rule-of-thumb \cite{Marolf:2022ntb}…
We consider weighted parallel spinors in Lorentzian Weyl geometry in arbitrary dimensions, choosing the weight such that the integrability condition for the existence of such a spinor, implies the geometry to be Einstein-Weyl. We then use…
We extend one of the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems in general relativity to the case of some scalar-tensor gravity theories in which the scalar field has a geometrical character and space-time has the mathematical structure of a Weyl…