Related papers: Dimensional Reduction in Quantum Gravity
Over the past few years, evidence has begun to accumulate suggesting that spacetime may undergo a "spontaneous dimensional reduction" to two dimensions near the Planck scale. I review some of this evidence, and discuss the (still very…
By considering matter as a constraint on the availability of gravitational degrees of freedom and accounting for the statistical interpretation of Rindler horizons, the freedom to construct quantum gravity theories reproducing General…
These lectures briefly review our current understanding of classical and quantum gravity in three spacetime dimensions, concentrating on the quantum mechanics of closed universes and the (2+1)-dimensional black hole. Three formulations of…
Just as for non-abelian gauge theories at strong coupling, discrete lattice methods are a natural tool in the study of non-perturbative quantum gravity. They have to reflect the fact that the geometric degrees of freedom are dynamical, and…
The existence of spacetime singularities is one of the biggest problems of nowadays physics. According to Penrose, each physical singularity should be covered by a "cosmic censor" which prevents any external observer from perceiving their…
The proper resolution of the so-called measurement problem requires a "top-down" conception of the quantum world that is opposed to the usual "bottom-up" conception, which builds on an intrinsically and maximally differentiated manifold.…
Various two-dimensional O(N) models coupled to Euclidean quantum gravity, whose intrinsic dimension is four, are shown to belong to universality classes of nongravitating statistical models in a lower number of dimensions. It is speculated…
We argue that a non-perturbative description of quantum gravity should involve two (non-interacting) copies of a dual field theory on the boundary, and describe the states of the spacetimes accordingly. So, for instance, a complete…
Recent results show that important singularities in General Relativity can be naturally described in terms of finite and invariant canonical geometric objects. Consequently, one can write field equations which are equivalent to Einstein's…
The canonical analysis and subsequent quantization of the (2+1)-dimensional action of pure gravity plus a cosmological constant term is considered, under the assumption of the existence of one spacelike Killing vector field. The proper…
A satisfactory theory of quantum gravity may necessitate a drastic modification of our perception of space-time, by giving it a foamy structure at distances comparable to the Planck length. It is argued in this essay that the experimental…
Loop quantum gravity and cosmology are reviewed with an emphasis on evaluating the dynamics, rather than constructing it. The three crucial parts of such an analysis are (i) deriving effective equations, (ii) controlling the theory's…
Inspired by possible connections between gravity and foundational question in quantum theory, we consider an approach for the adaptation of objective collapse models to a general relativistic context. We apply these ideas to a list of open…
The existing approaches to quantization of gravity aim at giving quantum description of 3-geometry following to the ideas of the Wheeler -- DeWitt geometrodynamics. In this description the role of gauge gravitational degrees of freedom is…
Several lines of evidence hint that quantum gravity at very small distances may be effectively two-dimensional. I summarize the evidence for such ``spontaneous dimensional reduction,'' and suggest an additional argument coming from the…
Coupling any interacting quantum mechanical system to gravity in one (time) dimension requires the cosmological constant to belong to the matter energy spectrum and thus to be quantised, even though the gravity sector is free of any quantum…
We formulate quantum gravity in $2+\epsilon$ dimensions in such a way that the conformal mode is explicitly separated. The dynamics of the conformal mode is understood in terms of the oversubtraction due to the one loop counter term. The…
Each approach to the quantum-gravity problem originates from expertise in one or another area of theoretical physics. The particle-physics perspective encourages one to attempt to reproduce in quantum gravity as much as possible of the…
There are fundamental reasons as to why there should exist a reformulation of quantum mechanics which does not refer to a classical spacetime manifold. It follows as a consequence that quantum mechanics as we know it is a limiting case of a…
A string theory in $3$ euclidean spacetime dimensions is found to describe the semiclassical behavior of a certain exact physical state of quantum general relativity in $4$ dimensions. Both the worldsheet and the three dimensional metric…