Related papers: Towards a loop representation for quantum canonica…
New results from the new variables/loop representation program of nonperturbative quantum gravity are presented, with a focus on results of Ashtekar, Rovelli and the author which greatly clarify the physical interpretation of the quantum…
Recent work on the loop representation of quantum gravity has revealed previously unsuspected connections between knot theory and quantum gravity, or more generally, 3-dimensional topology and 4-dimensional generally covariant physics. We…
The preceding talks given at this conference have dealt mainly with general ideas for, main problems of and techniques for the task of quantizing gravity canonically. Since one of the major motivations to arrange for this meeting was that…
In this paper, an attempt is made to represent 5+1 dimensional gravity (via ADM formalism) in terms of the loop constructions introduced by the author in a companion paper. The "momenta" and "velocity" from the earlier paper, which were…
We show that the quantization of spherically symmetric pure gravity can be carried out completely in the framework of Ashtekar's self-dual representation. Consistent operator orderings can be given for the constraint functionals yielding…
We review the application of the loop representation to gauge theories and general relativity. The emphasis lies on exhibiting the loop calculus techniques, and their application to the canonical quantization. We discuss the role that knot…
We construct knot invariants categorifying the quantum knot variants for all representations of quantum groups. We show that these invariants coincide with previous invariants defined by Khovanov for sl_2 and sl_3 and by Mazorchuk-Stroppel…
Quantization of the system comprising gravitational, fermionic and electromagnetic fields is developed in the loop representation. As a result we obtain a natural unified quantum theory. Gravitational field is treated in the framework of…
We consider the quantization of gravity as an SL(2,C) gauge theory in terms of Ashtekar's selfdual variables and reality conditions for the spatial metric (RCI) and its evolution (RCII). We start from a holomorphic phase space formulation.…
Canonical gravity can be formulated by means of a densitized dreibein together with an SU(2) connection. These so-called Ashtekar variables are the fundamental quantities, loop quantum gravity is resting on. In this paper we review these…
We prove a `Whitney' presentation, and a `Coulomb branch' presentation, for the torus equivariant quantum K theory of the Grassmann manifold $\mathrm{Gr}(k;n)$, inspired from physics, and stated in an earlier paper. The first presentation…
In loop quantum cosmology, one has to make a choice of SU(2) irreducible representation in which to compute holonomies and regularize the curvature of the connection. The systematic choice made in the literature is to work in the…
Starting from a Hamiltonian description of four dimensional general relativity in presence of a cosmological constant we perform the program of canonical quantisation. This is done using complex Ashtekar variables while keeping the…
We give an SU(2) covariant representation of the constraints of Euclidean general relativity in the Ashtekar variables. The guiding principle is the use of triads to transform all free spatial indices into SU(2) indices. A central role is…
The kinematics of loop gravity can be given a manifestly Lorentz-covariant formulation: the conventional SU(2)-spin-network Hilbert space can be mapped to a space K of SL(2,C) functions, where Lorentz covariance is manifest. K can be…
We advocate an alternative description of canonical gravity in 3+1 dimensions, obtained by using as the basic variable a real variant of the usual Ashtekar connection variables on the spatial three-manifold. With this ansatz, no non-trivial…
The improved lattice regularization method of the Ashtekar connection holonomy representation in loop quantum gravity is described in this article. The approach is based on the geometric expansion of holonomies into power series up to the…
We construct a new vacuum for loop quantum gravity, which is dual to the Ashtekar-Lewandowski vacuum. Because it is based on BF theory, this new vacuum is physical for $(2+1)$-dimensional gravity, and much closer to the spirit of spin foam…
We propose a new representation for gauge theories and quantum gravity. It can be viewed as a generalization of the loop representation. We make use of a recently introduced extension of the group of loops into a Lie Group. This extension…
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,…