Related papers: Implementing causality in the spin foam quantum ge…
Spin Foam Models (SFMs) are covariant formulations of Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) in 4 dimensions. This work studies the perturbations of SFMs on a flat background. It demonstrates for the first time that smooth curved spacetime geometries…
A quantum gravity computer is one for which the particular effects of quantum gravity are relevant. In general relativity, causal structure is non-fixed. In quantum theory non-fixed quantities are subject to quantum uncertainty. It is…
Causal set theory provides a model of discrete spacetime in which spacetime events are represented by elements of a causal set---a locally finite, partially ordered set in which the partial order represents the causal relationships between…
In this thesis we investigate the importance of causality in non-perturbative approaches to quantum gravity. Firstly, causal sets are introduced as a simple kinematical model for causal geometry. It is shown how causal sets could account…
The calculation of higher-order corrections in Quantum Field Theories is a challenging task. In particular, dealing with multiloop and multileg Feynman amplitudes leads to severe bottlenecks and a very fast scaling of the computational…
We argue that a consistent coupling of a quantum theory to gravity requires an extension of ordinary `first order' Riemannian geometry to second order Riemannian geometry, which incorporates both a line element and an area element. This…
We review the construction of the tensorial structure of the graviton propagator in the context of loop quantum gravity and spinfoam formalism. The main result of this analysis is that applying the same strategy used to compute the diagonal…
The Barrett-Crane model for the SO(4,C) general relativity is systematically derived. This procedure makes rigorous the calculation of the Barrett-Crane intertwiners from the Barrett-Crane constraints of both real and complex Riemannian…
The graphical calculus method is generalized to study the relation between covariant and canonical dynamics of loop quantum gravity. On one hand, a graphical derivation of the partition function of the generalized Euclidean…
Quantum causality extends the conventional notion of fixed causal structure by allowing channels and operations to act in an indefinite causal order. The importance of such an indefinite causal order ranges from the foundational---e.g.…
The goal of spin foam models is to provide a viable path integral formulation of quantum gravity. Because of background independence, their underlying framework has certain novel features that are not shared by path integral formulations of…
We examine the role of consistency with causality and quantum mechanics in determining the properties of gravitation. We begin by examining two different classes of interacting theories of massless spin 2 particles -- gravitons. One…
We develop a proposal for a theory of simplicial gravity with spinors as the fundamental configuration variables. The underlying action describes a mechanical system with finitely many degrees of freedom, the system has a Hamiltonian and…
This paper presents a framework for Quantum causal modeling based on the interpretation of causality as a relation between an observer's probability assignments to hypothetical or counterfactual experiments. The framework is based on the…
Quantum gravity has been so elusive because we have tried to approach it by two paths which can never meet: quantum mechanics and general relativity. These contradict each other not only in superdense regimes, but also in the vacuum. We…
This paper is twofold. First of all a complete unified picture of $n$-dimensional quantum gravity is proposed in the following sense: In spin foam models of quantum gravity the evaluation of spin networks play a very important role. These…
We construct a generalised formalism for group field theories, in which the domain of the field is extended to include additional proper time variables, as well as their conjugate mass variables. This formalism allows for different types of…
We derive a spacetime formulation of quantum general relativity from (hamiltonian) loop quantum gravity. In particular, we study the quantum propagator that evolves the 3-geometry in proper time. We show that the perturbation expansion of…
An idea of reality conditions in the context of spin foams (Barrett-Crane models) is developed. The square of areas are the most elementary observables in the case of spin foams. This observation implies that simplest reality conditions in…
We construct the covariant effective field theory of gravity as an expansion in inverse powers of the Planck mass, identifying the leading and next-to-leading quantum corrections. We determine the form of the effective action for the cases…