Related papers: Causality and matter propagation in 3d spin foam q…
The Spin Foam approach to quantum gravity aims at providing a covariant path-integral formulation of canonical Loop Quantum Gravity. Since spin foam amplitudes are defined through discretisations of spacetime, understanding the continuum…
I discuss some issues of perturbative quantum gravity, namely of a theory of self-interacting massless spin-2 quantum gauge fields, the gravitons, on flat space-time, in the framework of causal perturbation theory. The central aspects of…
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…
We construct a group field theory model for quantum gravity minimally coupled to relativistic scalar fields, defining as well a corresponding discrete gravity path integral (and, implicitly, a coupled spin foam model) in its Feynman…
We construct a generalised formalism for group field theories, in which the domain of the field is extended to include additional proper time variables, as well as their conjugate mass variables. This formalism allows for different types of…
This article reviews the present status of the spin foam approach to the quantization of gravity. Special attention is payed to the pedagogical presentation of the recently introduced new models for four dimensional quantum gravity. The…
In this series of papers, we propose a new rendition of 3d and 4d state sum models based upon the group field theory (GFT) approach to non-perturbative quantum gravity. We will see that the group field theories investigated in the…
We investigate a connection between recent results in 3D quantum gravity, providing an effective noncommutative-spacetime description, and some earlier heuristic descriptions of a quantum-gravity contribution to the fuzziness of the…
In loop quantum gravity we now have a clear picture of the quantum geometry of space, thanks in part to the theory of spin networks. The concept of `spin foam' is intended to serve as a similar picture for the quantum geometry of spacetime.…
Loop quantum gravity has provided us with a canonical framework especially devised for background independent and diffeomorphism invariant gauge field theories. In this quantization the fundamental excitations are called spin network…
Group Field Theories, a generalization of matrix models for 2d gravity, represent a 2nd quantization of both loop quantum gravity and simplicial quantum gravity. In this paper, we construct a new class of Group Field Theory models, for any…
In this thesis we investigate the importance of causality in non-perturbative approaches to quantum gravity. Firstly, causal sets are introduced as a simple kinematical model for causal geometry. It is shown how causal sets could account…
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…
Starting from Ooguri's construction for $BF$ theory in three (and four) dimensions, we show how to construct a well defined theory with an infinite number of degrees of freedom. The spin network states that are kept invariant by the…
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.…
We give a short review of the spin foam models of quantum gravity, with an emphasis on the Barret-Crane model. After explaining the shortcomings of the Barret-Crane model, we briefly discuss two new approaches, one based on the 3d spin foam…
I discuss how to impose causality on spin-foam models, separating forward and backward propagation, turning a given triangulation to a 'causal set', and giving asymptotically the exponential of the Regge action, not a cosine. I show the…
We give a very concise review of the group field theory formalism for non-perturbative quantum gravity, a higher dimensional generalisation of matrix models. We motivate it as a simplicial and local realisation of the idea of 3rd…
We examine the role of consistency with causality and quantum mechanics in determining the properties of gravitation. We begin by examining two different classes of interacting theories of massless spin 2 particles -- gravitons. One…
The metric field of general relativity is almost fully determined by its causal structure. Yet, in spin-foam models for quantum gravity, the role played by the causal structure is still largely unexplored. The goal of this paper is to…