Related papers: Some remarks on topological 4d-gravity

In recent times there is a surge of interest in constructing Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet (EGB) gravity, in the limit $D \to 4 $, of the $D$-dimensional EGB gravity. Interestingly, the static spherically symmetric solutions in the various proposed…

We describe a functional renormalization group-based method to search for `$C$-like' functions with properties similar to that in 2D conformal field theory. It exploits the mode counting properties of the effective average action and is…

We discuss topological theories, arising from the general $\mathcal{N}=2$ twisted gauge theories. We initiate a program of their study in the Gromov-Witten paradigm. We re-examine the low-energy effective abelian theory in the presence of…

We propose a new mwthod of constructing 4D-TQFTs. The method uses a new type of algebraic structure called a Hopf Category. We also outline the construction of a family of Hopf categories related to the quantum groups, using the canonical…

This dissertation investigates three main topics, all of which dealing with alternative, higher-order gravity theories in four dimensions. Firstly, we study the variational and conformal structure of those theories. Next, we analyse their…

Higher derivative theory is one of the important models of quantum gravity, renormalizable and asymptotically free within the standard perturbative approach. We consider the $4-\epsilon$ renormalization group for this theory, an approach…

The problem of constructing a quantum theory of gravity has been tackled with very different strategies, most of which relying on the interplay between ideas from physics and from advanced mathematics. On the mathematical side, a central…

These notes accompany a lecture about the topology of symplectic (and other) quotients. The aim is two-fold: first to advertise the ease of computation in the symplectic category; and second to give an account of some new computations for…

We consider the classification of near-horizon geometries in a general two-derivative theory of gravity coupled to abelian gauge fields and uncharged scalars in four and five dimensions, with one and two commuting rotational symmetries…

We introduce the notion of H-equivariant Morita-Takeuchi theory for coalgebras with symmetries given by a Hopf algebra H. A cohomology theory is introduced which classifies the possible lifts of coactions on coalgebras to corresponding…

We re-examine the problem of gauging the Wess-Zumino term of a d-dimensional bosonic sigma-model. We phrase this problem in terms of the equivariant cohomology of the target space and this allows for the homological analysis of the…

Closing a gap in the literature on the subject, the local solutions of 2D-gravity with torsion are given for Euclidian signature. For the topology of a cylinder the system is quantized.

Starting from the reformulation of the classical phase space of Loop Quantum Gravity in terms of spinor variables and spinor networks, we build coherent spin network states and show how to use them to write the spinfoam path integral for…

The classification of the possible equilibrium shapes that a self-gravitating fluid can take in a Riemannian manifold is a classical problem in mathematical physics. In this paper it is proved that the equilibrium shapes are isoparametric…

Based on the observation that the dimension of the tangent space is not necessarily equal to the dimension of the corresponding curved manifold and on the known fact that gravitational theories can be formulated in a gauge theoretic way, we…

I review some recent results on four-manifold invariants which have been obtained in the context of topological quantum field theory. I focus on three different aspects: (a) the computation of correlation functions, which give explicit…

Unimodular gravity can be formulated so that transverse diffeomorphisms and Weyl transformations are symmetries of the theory. For this formulation of unimodular gravity, we work out the two-point and three-point $h_{\mu\nu}$ contributions…

W_4 gravity is treated algebraically, represented by a set of transformations on classical fields. The Ward identities of the theory are determined by requiring the algebra to close. The general forms for the anomalies are found by looking…

A method for consistent quantization of conformal gravity treating conformal symmetry in a very controllable way is presented. First, we discuss local conformal symmetry in the framework of gravitational interactions, where we view it as an…

In the lecture notes, the author will survey the development of conformal geometry on four dimensional manifolds. The topic she chooses is one on which she has been involved in the past twenty or more years: the study of the integral…