Related papers: Spin Foam Models for Quantum Gravity
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…
If there exists a formulation of quantum mechanics which does not refer to a background classical spacetime manifold, it then follows as a consequence, (upon making one plausible assumption), that a quantum description of gravity should be…
This is a review of the present status of loop and spin foam approaches to quantization of four-dimensional general relativity. It aims at raising various issues which seem to challenge some of the methods and the results often taken as…
The emergence of Lorentzian geometries in spin-foams and group field theories is investigated. The spectral dimension of periodic Euclidean spin-foam frusta is studied. At large scales, the spectral dimension is generically four. At lower…
In brane world scenarios with a bulk scalar field between two branes it is known that 4-dimensional Einstein gravity is restored at low energies on either brane. By using a gauge-invariant gravitational and scalar perturbation formalism we…
As it stands, quantum gravity coupled with matter in three spacetime dimensions is not finite. In this paper I show that an algorithmic procedure that makes it finite exists, under certain conditions. To achieve this result, gravity is…
Effective spin foams provide the computationally most efficient spin foam models yet and are therefore ideally suited for applications e.g. to quantum cosmology. We provide here the first effective spin foam computations of a finite time…
So far spin foam models are hardly understood beyond a few of their basic building blocks. To make progress on this question, we define analogue spin foam models, so called spin nets, for quantum groups $\text{SU}(2)_k$ and examine their…
Spin foam models are an attempt for a covariant, or path integral formulation of canonical loop quantum gravity. The construction of such models usually rely on the Plebanski formulation of general relativity as a constrained BF theory and…
There must exist a reformulation of quantum field theory which does not refer to classical time. We propose a pre-quantum, pre-spacetime theory, which is a matrix-valued Lagrangian dynamics for gravity, Yang-Mills fields, and fermions. The…
The main results for the two-dimensional quantum gravity, conjectured from the matrix model or integrable approach, are presented in the form to be compared with the world-sheet or Liouville approach. In spherical limit the integrable side…
Loop quantum gravity, a non-perturbative and manifestly background free, quantum theory of gravity implies that at the kinematical level the spatial geometry is discrete in a specific sense. The spirit of background independence also…
We introduce a vertex amplitude for 4d loop quantum gravity. We derive it from a conventional quantization of a Regge discretization of euclidean general relativity. This yields a spinfoam sum that corrects some difficulties of the…
We introduce a new basis on the state space of non-perturbative quantum gravity. The states of this basis are linearly independent, are well defined in both the loop representation and the connection representation, and are labeled by a…
In this paper explore the relation between covariant and canonical approaches to quantum gravity and $BF$ theory. We will focus on the dynamical triangulation and spin-foam models, which have in common that they can be defined in terms of…
Calculations in Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) and spin-foams theory rely heavily on group theory of SU(2) and SL(2,C). Even though many monographs exist devoted to this theory, the different tools needed (e.g. representation theory, harmonic…
In the investigation and resolution of the cosmological constant problem the inclusion of the dynamics of quantum gravity can be a crucial step. In this work we suggest that the quantum constraints in a canonical theory of gravity can…
We propose a new holonomy formulation for spin foams, which naturally extends the theory space of lattice gauge theories. This allows current spin foam models to be defined on arbitrary two-complexes as well as to generalize current spin…
A covariant spin-foam formulation of quantum gravity has been recently developed, characterized by a kinematics which appears to match well the one of canonical loop quantum gravity. In this paper we reconsider the implementation of the…
After short historical overview we describe the difficulties with application of standard QFT methods in quantum gravity (QG). The incompatibility of QG with the use of classical continuous space-time required conceptually new approach. We…