Related papers: Spin Foam Models of Quantum Spacetime

Boulatov and Ooguri have generalized the matrix models of 2d quantum gravity to 3d and 4d, in the form of field theories over group manifolds. We show that the Barrett-Crane quantum gravity model arises naturally from a theory of this type,…

We present a spin foam formulation of Lorentzian quantum General Relativity. The theory is based on a simple generalization of an Euclidean model defined in terms of a field theory over a group. Its vertex amplitude turns out to be the one…

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…

We review the dual transformation from pure lattice gauge theory to spin foam models with an emphasis on a geometric viewpoint. This allows us to give a simple dual formulation of SU(N) Yang-Mills theory, where spin foam surfaces are…

Spin foam models for gravity or BF theory can be constructed by path integral formulation of the classical discrete models formulated on simplicial manifolds. Using this, we discuss the rigorous construction of Lorentzian spin foam models…

A surface theoretic view of non-perturbative quantum gravity as "spin-foams" was proposed by Baez. A possibility of constructing such a model was studied some time ago based on (2+1) dimensional general relativity as a reformulation of the…

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…

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…

We numerically study Barrett-Crane models of Riemannian quantum gravity. We have extended the existing numerical techniques to handle q-deformed models and arbitrary space-time triangulations. We present and interpret expectation values of…

Making the Lorentzian path integral for quantum gravity well-defined and computable has been a long standing challenge. In this work we adopt the recently proposed effective spin foam models to the Lorentzian case. This defines a path…

A spin-foam model is derived from the canonical model of Loop Quantum Gravity coupled to a massless scalar field. We generalized to the full theory the scheme first proposed in the context of Loop Quantum Cosmology by Ashtekar, Campiglia…

We use the approach to generate spin foam models by an auxiliary field theory defined on a group manifold (as recently developed in quantum gravity and quantization of BF-theories) in the context of topological quantum field theories with a…

We describe here some new results concerning the Lorentzian Barrett-Crane model, a well-known spin foam formulation of quantum gravity. Generalizing an existing finiteness result, we provide a concise proof of finiteness of the partition…

We discuss various features and details of two versions of the Barrett-Crane spin foam model of quantum gravity, first of the Spin(4)-symmetric Riemannian model and second of the SL(2,C)-symmetric Lorentzian version in which all tetrahedra…

We link the notion causality with the orientation of the 2-complex on which spin foam models are based. We show that all current spin foam models are orientation-independent, pointing out the mathematical structure behind this independence.…

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…

Spacetime foam is analyzed within the simplistic model of a set of scalar fields on a flat background. We suggest the formula for the path integral which allows to account for the all possible topologies of spacetime. We show that the…

In this paper we tackle the issue of causality in quantum gravity, in the context of 3d spin foam models. We identify the correct procedure for implementing the causality/orientation dependence restriction that reduces the path integral for…

An example illustrating a continuum spin foam framework is presented. This covariant framework induces the kinematics of canonical loop quantization, and its dynamics is generated by a {\em renormalized} sum over colored polyhedra.…

The causal structure is a quintessential element of continuum spacetime physics and needs to be properly encoded in a theory of Lorentzian quantum gravity. Established spin foam (and tensorial group field theory (TGFT)) models mostly work…