Related papers: New directions in Background Independent Quantum G…
Not only in physical string theories, but also in some highly simplified situations, background independence has been difficult to understand. It is argued that the ``holomorphic anomaly'' of Bershadsky, Cecotti, Ooguri, and Vafa gives a…
We portray the structure of quantum gravity emerging from recent progress in understanding the quantum mechanics of an evaporating black hole. Quantum gravity admits two different descriptions, based on Euclidean gravitational path integral…
A reformulation of a physical theory in which measurements at the initial and final moments of time are treated independently is discussed, both on the classical and quantum levels. Methods of the standard quantum mechanics are used to…
In recent years, Loop Quantum Gravity has emerged as a solid candidate for a nonperturbative quantum theory of General Relativity. It is a background independent theory based on a description of the gravitational field in terms of…
Although it's widely believed that gravity should have a quantum nature like every other force, the conceptual obstacles to constructing a quantum theory of gravity compel us to explore other perspectives. Gravity is not like any other…
A background-independent route towards a universal continuum limit in discrete models of quantum gravity proceeds through a background-independent form of coarse graining. This review provides a pedagogical introduction to the conceptual…
One of the main technical obstacles in constructing a consistent theory of quantum gravity is that the metric itself defines the causal structure required for quantization. This motivates implementing quantum aspects of gravity through an…
This paper proposes a method of unifying quantum mechanics and gravity based on quantum computation. In this theory, fundamental processes are described in terms of pairwise interactions between quantum degrees of freedom. The geometry of…
When attempting to assess the strengths and weaknesses of various principles in their potential role of guiding the formulation of a theory of quantum gravity, it is crucial to distinguish between principles which are strongly supported by…
The literature on quantum-gravity-inspired scenarios for the quantization of spacetime has so far focused on particle-physics-like studies. This is partly justified by the present limitations of our understanding of quantum-gravity…
In any attempt to build a quantum theory of gravity, a central issue is to unravel the structure of space-time at the smallest scale. Of particular relevance is the possible definition of coordinate functions within the theory and the study…
Quantum gravity has matured over the last decade to a theory which can tell in a precise and explicit way how cosmological singularities of general relativity are removed. A branch of the universe "before" the classical big bang is obtained…
We investigate gravity as a gauge theory in the language of fiber bundles with tools from algebraic geometry. Compelled by the construction of the Eilenberg-MacLane classifying space via Fox derivations in an integral group ring, the origin…
This article presents an "in-a-nutshell" yet self-contained introductory review on loop quantum gravity (LQG) -- a background-independent, nonperturbative approach to a consistent quantum theory of gravity. Instead of rigorous and…
The incompatibility between GR and QM is generally seen as a sufficient motivation for the development of a theory of Quantum Gravity. If - so a typical argumentation - QM gives a universally valid basis for the description of all natural…
We calculate deviations in cosmological observables as a function of parameters in a class of connection-based models of quantum gravity. In this theory non-trivial modifications to the background cosmology can occur due to a distortion of…
I argue that background freedom in quantum gravity automatically leads to a dissociation of the quantum state into states having a classical space. That is, interference is not completely well-defined for states with different space…
Singularities in general relativity and quantum field theory are often taken not only to motivate the search for a more-fundamental theory (quantum gravity, QG), but also to characterise this new theory and shape expectations of what it is…
We study perturbative noncommutative quantum gravity by expanding the gravitational field about a fixed classical background. A calculation of the one loop gravitational self-energy graph reveals that only the non-planar graviton loops are…
We propose a theory of quantum gravity which formulates the quantum theory as a nonperturbative path integral, where each spacetime history appears with a weight given by the exponentiated Einstein-Hilbert action of the corresponding causal…