Related papers: Discrete quantum gravity in the framework of Regge…
A major unsolved problem in theoretical physics is to reconcile the classical theory of general relativity with quantum mechanics. These lectures will deal with an attempt to describe quantum gravity as a path integral over geometries known…
Motivated by the search for geometric observables in nonperturbative quantum gravity, we define a notion of coarse-grained Ricci curvature. It is based on a particular way of extracting the local Ricci curvature of a smooth Riemannian…
We present an overview on relational observables in gravity mainly from a loop quantum gravity perspective. The gauge group of general relativity is the diffeomorphism group of the underlying manifold. Consequently, general relativity is a…
General relativity successfully describes space-times at scales that we can observe and probe today, but it cannot be complete as a consequence of singularity theorems. For a long time there have been indications that quantum gravity will…
We argue that recent developments in discretizations of classical and quantum gravity imply a new paradigm for doing research in these areas. The paradigm consists in discretizing the theory in such a way that the resulting discrete theory…
We consider a discrete model of euclidean quantum gravity in four dimensions based on a summation over random simplicial manifolds. The action used is the Einstein-Hilbert action plus an $R^2$-term. The phase diagram as a function of the…
A piecewise flat manifold is a triangulated manifold given a geometry by specifying edge lengths (lengths of 1-simplices) and specifying that all simplices are Euclidean. We consider the variation of angles of piecewise flat manifolds as…
An earlier proposed theory with linear-gonihedhic action for quantum gravity is reviewed. One can consider this theory as a "square root" of classical gravity with a new fundamental constant of dimension one. We demonstrate also, that the…
The four-dimensional gauge group of general relativity corresponds to arbitrary coordinate transformations on a four-manifold. Theories of gravity with a dynamical structure remarkably like Einstein's theory can be obtained on the basis of…
The inclusion of source terms in discrete gravity is a long-standing problem. Providing a consistent coupling of source to the lattice in Regge Calculus (RC) yields a robust unstructured spacetime mesh applicable to both numerical…
We assume that the points in volumes smaller than an elementary volume (which may have a Planck size) are indistinguishable in any physical experiment. This naturally leads to a picture of a discrete space with a finite number of degrees of…
We develop the general formalism for performing perturbative diagrammatic expansions in the lattice theory of quantum gravity. The results help establish a precise correspondence between continuum and lattice quantities, and should be a…
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…
We show how it is possible to formulate Euclidean two-dimensional quantum gravity as the scaling limit of an ordinary statistical system by means of dynamical triangulations, which can be viewed as a discretization in the space of…
In general relativity (GR), spacetime geometry is no longer just a background arena but a physical and dynamical entity with its own degrees of freedom. We present an overview of approaches to quantum gravity in which this central feature…
We show that General Relativity can be formulated as a constrained topological theory for flat 2-connections associated to the Poincar\'e 2-group. Matter can be consistently coupled to gravity in this formulation. We also show that the edge…
We re-examine the approach to four-dimensional Euclidean quantum gravity based on the Regge calculus. A cut-off on the link lengths is introduced and consequently the gravitational coupling and the cosmological constant become independent…
Using the Steiner-Weyl expansion formula for parallel manifolds and the so called gonihedric principle we find a large class of discrete integral invariants which are defined on simplicial manifolds of various dimensions. These integral…
We argue that a (slightly) curved space-time probed with a finite resolution, equivalently a finite minimal length, is effectively described by a flat non-commutative space-time. More precisely, a small cosmological constant (so a constant…
The gauge symmetry of classical general relativity under space-time diffeomorphisms implies that any path integral quantization which can be interpreted as a sum over space-time geometries, gives rise to a formal invariant of smooth…