Related papers: Elementary Model of Constraint Quantization with a…
It is often argued that gravity has to be a quantum theory simply because a fundamentally semiclassical approach would necessarily be inconsistent. Here I review recent Newtonian toy models of (stochastic) semiclassical gravity. They…
The quest for a consistent theory which describes the quantum microstructure of spacetime seems to require some departure from the paradigms that have been followed in the construction of quantum theories for the other fundamental…
The conversion of second-class constraints into first-class constraints is used to extend the coordinate-free path integral quantization, achieved by a flat-space Brownian motion regularization of the coherent-state path integral measure,…
Studies of geometrical theories suggest that fundmental problems of quantization arise from the disparate usage of displacement operators. These may be the source of a concealed inconsistency in the accepted formalism of quantum physics.…
We show that if one starts with a Universe with some matter and a cosmological constant, then quantum mechanics naturally induces an attractive gravitational potential and an effective Newton's coupling. Thus gravity is an emergent…
The unsatisfactory status of the search for a consistent and predictive quantization of gravity is taken as motivation to study the question whether geometrical laws could be more fundamental than quantization procedures. In such an…
We review aspects of loop quantum gravity in a pedagogical manner, with the aim of enabling a precise but critical assessment of its achievements so far. We emphasise that the off-shell (`strong') closure of the constraint algebra is a…
We construct the regularized Wheeler--De Witt operator demanding that the algebra of constraints of quantum gravity is anomaly free. We find that for only a small subset of all wavefunctions being integrals of scalar densities this…
In view of the enormous difficulties we seem to face in quantizing general relativity, we should perhaps consider the possibility that gravity is a fundamentally classical interaction. Theoretical arguments against such mixed…
Quantum gravity is sometimes considered as a kind of metaphysical speculation. In this review, we show that, although still extremely difficult to reach, observational signatures can in fact be expected. The early universe is an invaluable…
This article provides a cartoon of the quantization of General Relativity using the ideas of effective field theory. These ideas underpin the use of General Relativity as a theory from which precise predictions are possible, since they show…
It is generally believed that quantum gravity is necessary to resolve the known tensions between general relativity and the quantum field theories of the standard model. Since perturbatively quantized gravity is non-renormalizable, the…
A sketch of the affine quantum gravity program illustrates a different perspective on several difficult issues of principle: metric positivity; quantum anomalies; and nonrenormalizability.
Although there is general agreement that a removal of classical gravitational singularities is not only a crucial conceptual test of any approach to quantum gravity but also a prerequisite for any fundamental theory, the precise criteria…
We discuss the quantization of theories which are formulated using compensating fields. In particular, we discuss the relation between the components formulation and the superspace formulation of supergravity theories. The requirement that…
Theories of natural language and concepts have been unable to model the flexibility, creativity, context-dependence, and emergence, exhibited by words, concepts and their combinations. The mathematical formalism of quantum theory has…
In physical theories, boundary or initial conditions play the role of selecting special situations which can be described by a theory with its general laws. Cosmology has long been suspected to be different in that its fundamental theory…
We construct perturbative quantum gravity in a generally covariant way. In particular our construction is background independent. It is based on the locally covariant approach to quantum field theory and the renormalized Batalin-Vilkovisky…
A first-order gauge invariant formulation for the two-dimensional quantum rigid rotor is long known in the theoretical physics community as an isolated peculiar model. Parallel to that fact, the longstanding constraints abelianization…
In a former paper we proposed a model for the quantization of gravity by working in a bundle $E$ where we realized the Hamilton constraint as the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. However, the corresponding operator only acts in the fibers and not…