Related papers: (2+1)-dimensional quantum gravity, spin networks a…
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…
Relativistic spin networks are defined by considering the spin covering of the group SO(4), SU(2) times SU(2). Relativistic quantum spins are related to the geometry of the 2-dimensional faces of a 4-simplex. This extends the idea of…
The quantization of Lorentzian or Euclidean 2+1 gravity by canonical methods is a well-studied problem. However, the constraints of 2+1 gravity are those of a topological field theory and therefore resemble very little those of the…
The general solutin to the constraints that define relativistic spin networks vertices is given and their relations with 3-dimensional quantum tetrahedra is dicussed. An alternative way to handle the constraints is also presented.
We define supersymmetric spin networks, which provide a complete set of gauge invariant states for supergravity and supersymmetric gauge theories. The particular case of Osp(1/2) is studied in detail and applied to the non-perturbative…
The distinct models that describe spin 1 and 2 massive excitations in 2+1 dimensions are analized, showing their equivalence (between models of same spin) and analogies (between models of different spin). Topics as spontaneous symmetry…
A spin network is a cubic ribbon graph labeled by representations of $\mathrm{SU}(2)$. Spin networks are important in various areas of Mathematics (3-dimensional Quantum Topology), Physics (Angular Momentum, Classical and Quantum Gravity)…
A new link between tetrahedra and the group SU(2) is pointed out: by associating to each face of a tetrahedron an irreducible unitary SU(2) representation and by imposing that the faces close, the concept of quantum tetrahedron is seen to…
The study of toy models in loop quantum gravity (LQG), defined as truncations of the full theory, is relevant to both the development of the LQG phenomenology, in cosmology and astrophysics, and the progress towards the resolution of the…
A review is given of some classical and quantum aspects of 2+1 dimensional gravity.
We derive the Gauss-Codazzi equation in the holonomy and plane-angle representations and we use the result to write a Gauss-Codazzi equation for a discrete (2+1)-dimensional manifold, triangulated by isosceles tetrahedra. This allows us to…
Spin networks are at the core of quantum gravity. Our aim is to plug the mathematical community at large into the procedures turn to create a finite quantum theory of general relativity. For this, because of the different cultural…
A spin network is a generalization of a knot or link: a graph embedded in space, with edges labelled by representations of a Lie group, and vertices labelled by intertwining operators. Such objects play an important role in 3-dimensional…
We do not yet know how to quantize gravity in 3+1 dimensions, but in lower dimensions we face the opposite problem: many of the approaches originally developed for (3+1)-dimensional gravity can be successfully implemented in 2+1 dimensions,…
We propose an explicit spin-foam amplitude for Lorentzian gravity in three dimensions, allowing for both space- and time-like boundaries. The model is based on two main requirements: that it should be structurally similar to its well-known…
No theory of four-dimensional quantum gravity exists as yet. In this situation the two-dimensional theory, which can be analyzed by conventional field-theoretical methods, can serve as a toy model for studying some aspects of quantum…
In three spacetime dimensions, general relativity drastically simplifies, becoming a ``topological'' theory with no propagating local degrees of freedom. Nevertheless, many of the difficult conceptual problems of quantizing gravity are…
We connect Braided Ribbon Networks to the states of loop quantum gravity. Using this connection we present the reduced link as an invariant which captures information from the embedding of the spin-networks. We also present a means of…
We show how spin networks can be described and evaluated as Feynman integrals over an internal space. This description can, in particular, be applied to the so-called simple SO(D) spin networks that are of importance for higher-dimensional…
We discuss the extension of loop quantum gravity to topspin networks, a proposal which allows topological information to be encoded in spin networks. We will show that this requires minimal changes to the phase space, C*-algebra and Hilbert…