Related papers: Spin Foam Quantization and Anomalies
Spin foams arise from a quantization of classical gravity expressed via the Plebanski action. Key open questions related to the continuum limit of spin foams are whether general relativity is reproduced and what type of corrections could…
This review is devoted to the analysis of the mutual consistency of the spin foam and canonical loop quantizations in three and four spacetime dimensions. In the three-dimensional context, where the two approaches are in good agreement, we…
Spin foams are candidate state-sum models for transition amplitudes in quantum gravity. An active research subject is to identify the possible divergences of spin foam models, or alternatively to show that models are finite. We will discuss…
Spin foam models are the path integral counterparts to loop quantized canonical theories. In the last few years several spin foam models of gravity have been proposed, most of which live on finite simplicial lattice spacetime. The lattice…
We show that the degenerate sector of Spin(4) Plebanski formulation of four-dimensional gravity is exactly solvable and describes covariantly embedded SU(2) BF theory. This fact ensures that its spin foam quantization is given by the SU(2)…
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…
Any approach to pure quantum gravity must eventually face the question of coupling quantum matter to the theory. In the past, several ways of coupling matter to spin foam quantum gravity have been proposed, but the dynamics of the coupled…
We give a general definition of spin foam models, and then of models of 4d quantum gravity based on constraining BF theory. We highlight the construction and quantization ambiguities entering model building, among which the choice of…
While the use of spin networks has greatly improved our understanding of the kinematical aspects of quantum gravity, the dynamical aspects remain obscure. To address this problem, we define the concept of a `spin foam' going from one spin…
We revise imposition of various constraints in spin foam models of 4-dimensional general relativity. We argue that the usual simplicity constraint must be supplemented by a constraint on holonomies and together they must be inserted…
We construct a class of spin foam models describing matter coupled to gravity, such that the gravitational sector is described by the unitary irreducible representations of the appropriate symmetry group, while the matter sector is…
In the quest of a physical theory of quantum gravity, spin foam models, or in short spinfoams, propose a well-defined path integral summing over quantized discrete space-time geometries. At the crossroad of topological quantum field theory,…
We give a short review of the spin foam models of quantum gravity, with an emphasis on the Barret-Crane model. After explaining the shortcomings of the Barret-Crane model, we briefly discuss two new approaches, one based on the 3d spin foam…
We consider discretizations of the Einstein action of general relativity such that the resulting discrete equations of motion form a consistent constrained system. Upon ``spin foam'' quantization of the system, consistency allows a natural…
We give a brief and a critical review of the Barret-Crane spin foam models of quantum gravity. Then we describe two new spin foam models which are obtained by direct quantization of General Relativity and do not have some of the drawbacks…
The spinfoam framework is a proposal for a regularized path integral for quantum gravity. Spinfoams define quantum space-time structures describing the evolution in time of the spin network states for quantum geometry derived from Loop…
The goal of this work is two-fold. In the first part of this paper we regard classical Plebanski's action as a BF action supplemented by constraints. We introduce a spin foam model for Riemannian general relativity by systematically…
We show how Feynman amplitudes of standard QFT on flat and homogeneous space can naturally be recast as the evaluation of observables for a specific spin foam model, which provides dynamics for the background geometry. We identify the…
We describe a class of spin foam models of four-dimensional quantum gravity which is based on the integration of the tetrad one-forms in the path integral for the Palatini action of General Relativity. In the Euclidian gravity case this…
We study a generalized action for gravity as a constrained BF theory, and its relationship with the Plebanski action. We analyse the discretization of the constraints and the spin foam quantization of the theory, showing that it leads…