Related papers: Towards the graviton from spinfoams: the 3d toy mo…
We consider the recent calculation gr-qc/0508124 of the graviton propagator in the spinfoam formalism. Within the 3d toy model introduced in gr-qc/0512102, we test how the spinfoam formalism can be used to construct the perturbative…
Based on a recent paper by Takhtajan, we propose a formulation of 2D quantum gravity whose basic object is the Liouville action on the Riemann sphere $\Sigma_{0,m+n}$ with both parabolic and elliptic points. The identification of the…
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…
We consider an exact expression for the 6j-symbol for the isosceles tetrahedron, involving integrals over SU(2), and use it to write the two-point function of 3d gravity on a single tetrahedron as a group integral. The perturbative…
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…
Spin Foam Models (SFMs) are covariant formulations of Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) in 4 dimensions. This work studies the perturbations of SFMs on a flat background. It demonstrates for the first time that smooth curved spacetime geometries…
We propose a toy model of quantum gravity in two dimensions with Euclidean signature. The model is given by a kind of discretization which is different from the dynamical triangulation. We show that there exists a continuum limit and we can…
Exploring potential empirical manifestations of quantum gravity is a challenging pursuit. In this study, we utilise a lattice representation of a (2+1)D massive gravity toy model interacting with Dirac fermions that can support specific…
In 4 dimensions, general relativity can be formulated as a constrained $BF$ theory; we show that the same is true in 2 dimensions. We describe a spinfoam quantization of this constrained BF-formulation of 2d riemannian general relativity,…
We study the boundary correlation functions in Liouville theory and in solvable statistical models of 2D quantum gravity. In Liouville theory we derive functional identities for all fundamental boundary structure constants, similar to the…
We investigate a higher-derivative scalar field model in a fixed d+1 dimensional AdS background as a toy model for a gravitational dual to a higher-rank logarithmic CFT. The holographic two-point correlation functions on the boundary agree…
We review some approaches to the Hamiltonian dynamics of (loop) quantum gravity, the main issues being the regularization of the Hamiltonian and the continuum limit. First, Thiemann's definition of the quantum Hamiltonian is presented, and…
In recent years, the calculation of the first non-vanishing order of the metric 2-point function or graviton propagator in a semiclassical limit has evolved as a standard test for the credibility of a proposed spin foam model. The existing…
In various background independent approaches, quantum gravity is defined in terms of a field propagation kernel: a sum over paths interpreted as a transition amplitude between 3-geometries, expected to project quantum states of the geometry…
We review the similarities between the effective chiral lagrangrian, relevant for low-energy strong interactions, and the Einstein-Hilbert action. We use these analogies to suggest a specific mechanism whereby gravitons would emerge as…
For want of a more natural proposal, it is generally assumed that the back-reaction of a quantised matter field on a classical metric is given by the expectation value of its energy-momentum tensor, evaluated in a specified state. This…
In this thesis we study the flat model, the main buidling block for the spinfoam approach to quantum gravity, with an emphasis on its divergences. Besides a personal introduction to the problem of quantum gravity, the manuscript consists in…
We construct a spinfoam model for Yang-Mills theory coupled to quantum gravity in three dimensional riemannian spacetime. We define the partition function of the coupled system as a power series in g_0^2 G that can be evaluated order by…
We analyze the partition function of three-dimensional quantum gravity on the twisted solid tours and the ensuing dual field theory. The setting is that of a non-perturbative model of three dimensional quantum gravity--the Ponzano-Regge…
We present a spinfoam 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. The model is an extension of a recently…