Related papers: Background Independent Quantum Mechanics and Gravi…
Bohmian mechanics offers a deterministic alternative to conventional quantum theory through well-defined particle trajectories. While successful in nonrelativistic contexts, its extension to curved spacetime-and hence quantum…
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…
The questions I have been asked during the 5th International School on Field Theory and Gravitation, have compelled me to give an account of the premises that I consider important for a beginner's approach to Loop Quantum Gravity. After a…
In these notes we explore a variety of models comprising a large number of constituents. An emphasis is placed on integrals over large Hermitian matrices, as well as quantum mechanical models whose degrees of freedom are organised in a…
This is an introduction to the group field theory approach to quantum gravity, with emphasis on motivations and basic formalism, more than on recent results; we elaborate on the various ingredients, both conceptual and formal, of the…
The paper presents a metaphysical characterization of spatiotemporal backgrounds from a realist perspective. The conceptual analysis is based on a heuristic sketch that encompasses the common formal traits of the major spacetime theories,…
In general relativity (GR), spacetime geometry is no longer just a background arena but a physical and dynamical entity with its own degrees of freedom. We present an overview of approaches to quantum gravity in which this central feature…
Till now, the foundation of quantum physics is still mysterious. To explore the mysteries in the foundation of quantum physics, people always take it for granted that quantum processes must be some types of fields/objects on a rigid space.…
We show that a class of topological field theories are quantum duals of the harmonic oscillator. This is demonstrated by establishing a correspondence between the creation and annihilation operators and non-local gauge invariant observables…
We propose an algebra of operators along an observer's worldline as a background-independent algebra in quantum gravity. In that context, it is natural to think of the Hartle-Hawking no boundary state as a universal state of maximum…
Quantum gravity that describes the world beyond the Planck scale should be formulated in a background-metric independent manner. Such a background-free nature can be represented as a gauge equivalency under conformal transformations, called…
We point out a possible complementation of the basic equations of quantum mechanics in the presence of gravity. This complementation is suggested by the well-known fact that quantum mechanics can be equivalently formulated in the position…
In the last 20 years, loop quantum gravity, a background independent approach to unify general relativity and quantum mechanics, has been widely investigated. The aim of loop quantum gravity is to construct a mathematically rigorous,…
Emergent modified gravity has shown that the canonical formulation of general relativity gives rise to a larger class of covariant modifications than action-based approaches, so far in symmetry-reduced models. This outcome is made possible…
The concept of a particle is ambiguous in quantum field theory. It is generally agreed that particles depend not only on spacetime, but also on coordinates used to parametrise spacetime points. One of us has in contrast proposed a…
We analyze the conceptual role of background independence in the application of the effective average action to quantum gravity. Insisting on a background independent renormalization group (RG) flow the coarse graining operation must be…
General covariance in quantum gravity is seen once one integrates over all possible metrics. In recent years topological field theories have given us a different route to general covariance without integrating over all possible metrics.…
A "quantum-first" approach to gravity is described, where rather than quantizing general relativity, one seeks to formulate the physics of gravity within a quantum-mechanical framework with suitably general postulates. Important guides are…
We present a generally covariant approach to quantum mechanics in which generalized positions, momenta and time variables are treated as coordinates on a fundamental "phase-spacetime." We show that this covariant starting point makes…
In the past decade the phenomenology of quantum gravity has been dominated by the search of violations of Lorentz invariance. However, there are very serious arguments that led us to assume that this invariance is a symmetry in Nature. This…