Related papers: Spacetime geometry from algebra: spin foam models …
We survey some philosophical aspects of the search for a quantum theory of gravity, emphasising how quantum gravity throws into doubt the treatment of spacetime common to the two `ingredient theories' (quantum theory and general…
Lattice Gauge Theory in 4-dimensional Euclidean space-time is generalized to ribbon categories which replace the category of representations of the gauge group. This provides a framework in which the gauge group becomes a quantum group…
Spinfoams provide a framework for the dynamics of loop quantum gravity that is manifestly covariant under the full four-dimensional diffeomorphism symmetry group of general relativity. In this way they complete the ideal of…
The turn of the millennium was a time of optimism about an approach to noncommutative geometry inspired by rich mathematical objects called `quantum groups' and its applications to quantum spacetime. This would model quantum gravity effects…
We discuss the possibility of a class of gauge theories, in four Euclidean dimensions, to describe gravity at quantum level. The requirement is that, at low energies, these theories can be identified with gravity as a geometrodynamical…
Noncommutative geometry, in its many incarnations, appears at the crossroad of various researches in theoretical and mathematical physics: from models of quantum space-time (with or without breaking of Lorentz symmetry) to loop gravity and…
Starting from the defining transformations of complex matrices for the $SO(4,R)$ group, we construct the fundamental representation and the tensor and spinor representations of the group $SO(4,R)$. Given the commutation relations for the…
A well-defined regularized path integral for Lorentzian quantum gravity in three and four dimensions is constructed, given in terms of a sum over dynamically triangulated causal space-times. Each Lorentzian geometry and its associated…
We study the coupling of massive fermions to the quantum mechanical dynamics of spacetime emerging from the spinfoam approach in three dimensions. We first recall the classical theory before constructing a spinfoam model of quantum gravity…
In a recent paper [1] we have constructed the spin and tensor representations of SO(4) from which the invariant weight can be derived for the Barrett-Crane model in quantum gravity. By analogy with the SO(4) group, we present 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 give a brief non-technical introduction to non-regular spacetime geometry. In particular, we discuss how curvature, and hence gravity, can be defined without a smooth (differential geometric) calculus.
We study the state-sum models of quantum gravity based on a representation 2-category of the Poincare 2-group. We call them spin-cube models, since they are categorical generalizations of spin-foam models. A spin-cube state sum can be…
We investigate a formulation of continuum 4d gravity in terms of a constrained topological (BF) theory, in the spirit of the Plebanski formulation, but involving only linear constraints, of the type used recently in the spin foam approach…
Exactly soluble models can serve as excellent tools to explore conceptual issues in non-perturbative quantum gravity. In perturbative approaches, it is only the two radiative modes of the linearized gravitational field that are quantized.…
We give a very concise review of the group field theory formalism for non-perturbative quantum gravity, a higher dimensional generalisation of matrix models. We motivate it as a simplicial and local realisation of the idea of 3rd…
Spin foams of 4d gravity were recently extended from complexes with purely spacelike surfaces to complexes that also contain timelike surfaces. In this article, we express the associated partition function in terms of vertex amplitudes and…
A new functional calculus, developed recently for a fully non-perturbative treatment of quantum gravity, is used to begin a systematic construction of a quantum theory of geometry. Regulated operators corresponding to areas of 2-surfaces…
In 4 dimensions, general relativity can be formulated as a constrained $BF$ theory; we show that the same is true in 2 dimensions. We describe a spinfoam quantization of this constrained BF-formulation of 2d riemannian general relativity,…
Spacetime undergoes quantum fluctuations, giving rise to spacetime foam, a.k.a. quantum foam. We discuss some properties of spacetime foam, and point out the conceptual interconnections in the physics of quantum foam, black holes, and…