Related papers: Topological Lattice Gravity Using Self-Dual Variab…
Dimensional reductions of various higher dimensional (super)gravity theories lead to effectively two-dimensional field theories described by gravity coupled G/H nonlinear sigma-models. We show that a new set of complexified variables can be…
We construct a theory in which the gravitational interaction is described only by torsion, but that generalizes the Teleparallel Theory still keeping the invariance of local Lorentz transformations in one particular case. We show that our…
A new approach to the problem of topological freezing in gauge theories is introduced in which a physical volume preserving coarsening of the lattice induces sufficient energy variation in the Hamiltonian to overcome large topological…
Working directly with a general Hamiltonian for the spacetime metric with the $3+1$ decomposition and keeping only the spatial covariance, we investigate the possibility of reducing the number of degrees of freedom by introducing an…
We investigate a formulation of continuum 4d gravity in terms of a constrained topological (BF) theory, in the spirit of the Plebanski formulation, but involving only linear constraints, of the type used recently in the spin foam approach…
By virtue of harmonic maps on two-dimensional spheres (S$^{2}$), a topological quantization in spacetime is proposed. The discrete character of all physical quantities follows naturally. A Schwarzschild black hole, non-black hole and…
In special-relativistic physics, spacetime is imbued with a fixed, non-dynamical metric tensor. A path to gravitational theory is to promote this tensor to a genuine dynamical field. An alternative description of special-relativistic…
The Hamiltonian formulation of scalar-tensor theories of gravity is derived from their Lagrangian formulation by Hamiltonian analysis. The Hamiltonian formalism marks off two sectors of the theories by the coupling parameter $\omega(\phi)$.…
The degree of freedom of the scalar field in scalar-tensor gravity is employed as "time" to deparametrize the Hamiltonian constraint of the theory. The deparametrized system is then nonperturbatively quantized by the approach of loop…
The lattice definition of the two-dimensional topological quantum field theory [Fukuma, {\em et al}, Commun.~Math.~Phys.\ {\bf 161}, 157 (1994)] is generalized to arbitrary (not necessarily orientable) compact surfaces. It is shown that…
We present new second derivative, generally covariant theories of gravity for spherically symmetric spacetimes (general covariance is in the $t-r$ plane) belonging to the class where the spherically symmetric Einstein-Hilbert theory is…
We develop a systematic Hamiltonian formulation for a gravitating topological matter system in three-dimensional spacetime, coupling a scalar gauge field and a rank-2 antisymmetric gauge field to Einstein--Cartan gravity. We perform the…
Some classical aspects of Metric-Affine Gravity are reviewed in the context of the $F^{(n)}(R)$ type models (polynomials of degree $n$ in the Riemann tensor) and the topologically massive gravity. At the non-perturbative level, we explore…
Motivated by the apparent dependence of string $\sigma$--models on the sum of spacetime metric and antisymmetric tensor fields, we reconsider gravity theories constructed from a nonsymmetric metric. We first show that all such "geometrical"…
The unitarity of the 4D lattice theory of gravity in the case of the Minkowski signature is proved. The proof is valid only for lattices that conserve the number of degrees of freedom during time evolution. The Euclidean signature and the…
A local quantum bosonic model on a lattice is constructed whose low energy excitations are gravitons described by linearized Einstein action. Thus the bosonic model is a quantum theory of gravity, at least at the linear level. We find that…
We present a very simplified analysis of how one can overcome the Gribov problem in a non-abelian gauge theory. Our formulae, albeit quite simplified, show that possible breakdowns of the Slavnov-Taylor identity could in principle come from…
The metric-affine variational principle is applied to generate teleparallel and symmetric teleparallel theories of gravity. From the latter is discovered an exceptional class which is consistent with a vanishing affine connection. Based on…
Ashtekar's formulation for canonical quantum gravity is known to possess the topological solutions which have their supports only on the moduli space $\CN$ of flat $SL(2,C)$ connections. We show that each point on the moduli space $\CN$…
It is well known that three-dimensional Einstein's gravity without matter is topological, i.e. it does not have local propagating degrees of freedom. The main result of this work is to show that dynamics in the gravitational sector can be…