Related papers: Dominant Topologies in Euclidean Quantum Gravity
We introduce a new methodology to characterize properties of quantum spacetime in a strongly quantum-fluctuating regime, using tools from topological data analysis. Starting from a microscopic quantum geometry, generated nonperturbatively…
We discuss the O(4) invariant perturbation modes of cosmological instantons. These modes are spatially homogeneous in Lorentzian spacetime and thus not relevant to density perturbations. But their properties are important in establishing…
A proper understanding of boundary-value problems is essential in the attempt of developing a quantum theory of gravity and of the birth of the universe. The present paper reviews these topics in light of recent developments in spectral…
We study topological transport in the steady state of a quantum particle hopping on a one-dimensional lattice in the presence of dissipation. The model exhibits a rich phase structure, with the average particle velocity in the steady state…
Recent developments in ``Einstein Dehn filling'' allow the construction of infinitely many Einstein manifolds that have different topologies but are geometrically close to each other. Using these results, we show that for many spatial…
Realising the no-boundary proposal of Hartle and Hawking as a consistent gravitational path integral has been a long-standing puzzle. In particular, it was demonstrated by Feldbrugge et al. that the sum over all universes starting from zero…
We give a topological classification of quantum walks on an infinite 1D lattice, which obey one of the discrete symmetry groups of the tenfold way, have a gap around some eigenvalues at symmetry protected points, and satisfy a mild locality…
The recent progress in the Causal Dynamical Triangulations (CDT) approach to quantum gravity indicates that gravitation is nonperturbatively renormalizable. We review some of the latest results in 1+1 and 3+1 dimensions with special…
A central aspect of the cosmological constant problem is to understand why vacuum energy does not gravitate. In order to account for this observation, while allowing for nontrivial dynamics of the quantum vacuum, we motivate a novel…
We provide a new perspective on the cosmological constant by exploring the background-independent Wheeler-DeWitt quantization of general relativity. The Chern-Simons-Kodama state of quantum gravity, a generalization of the Hartle-Hawking…
Boundary conditions play a crucial role in the path-integral approach to quantum gravity and quantum cosmology, as well as in the current attempts to understand the one-loop semiclassical properties of quantum field theories. Within this…
Using the geometric definition of the topological charge we decompose the path integral of 2-dimensional U(1) lattice gauge theory into topological sectors. In a Monte Carlo simulation we compute the average value of the action as well as…
Topological phenomena are commonly studied in phases of matter which are separated from a trivial phase by an unavoidable quantum phase transition. This can be overly restrictive, leaving out scenarios of practical relevance -- similar to…
The role of topology in elementary quantum physics is discussed in detail. It is argued that attributes of classical spatial topology emerge from properties of state vectors with suitably smooth time evolution. Equivalently, they emerge…
We study the different quantum phases that occur in massive ${\cal N}=2$ supersymmetric QCD with gauge groups $SU(2)$ and $SU(3)$ as the coupling $\Lambda/M$ is gradually increased from 0 to infinity. The phases can be identified by…
In these two lectures I describe the difficulties one encounters when trying to construct a framework in which to describe topology change in classical general relativity where one sticks to the assumption of an everywhere non-singular…
Topology in quantum matter is typically associated with gapped phases. For example, in symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases, the bulk energy gap localizes edge modes near the boundary. In this work we identify a new mechanism that…
When the semi-positive cosmological constant is dynamical, the naive Euclidean Einstein action is unbounded from below and the Hartle-Hawking wavefunction of the universe is not normalizable. With the inclusion of back-reaction (a crucial…
We evaluate the quantum gravity partition function that counts the dimension of the Hilbert space of a simply connected spatial region of fixed proper volume in the context of Lovelock gravity, generalizing the results for Einstein gravity…
We study further the r\^ole of the boundary operator $\O_B$ for macroscopic loop length in the stable definition of 2D quantum gravity provided by the $[{\tilde P},Q]=Q$ formulation. The KdV flows are supplemented by an additional flow with…