Related papers: Mapping-class groups of 3-manifolds in canonical q…
In canonical quantum gravity certain topological properties of 3-manifolds are of interest. This article gives an account of those properties which have so far received sufficient attention, especially those concerning the diffeomorphism…
It is well known that the inequivalent unitary irreducible representations (UIR's) of the mapping class group $G$ of a 3-manifold give rise to ``theta sectors'' in theories of quantum gravity with fixed spatial topology. In this paper, we…
We discuss generalizations of the notion of i) the group of unitary elements of a (real or complex) finite dimensional C*-algebra, ii) gauge transformations and iii) (real) automorphisms, in the framework of compact quantum group theory and…
For a punctured surface $\mathfrak{S}$, the author and Scarinci (arXiv:2112.13329) have recently constructed a quantization of a moduli space of Lorentzian metrics on the 3-manifold $\mathfrak{S} \times \mathbb{R}$ of constant sectional…
In this paper, we survey recent works on the structure of the mapping class groups of surfaces mainly from the point of view of topology. We then discuss several possible directions for future research. These include the relation between…
In quantum geometry, we consider a set of loops, a compact orientable surface and a solid compact spatial region, all inside $\mathbb{R} \times \mathbb{R}^3 \equiv \mathbb{R}^4$, which forms a triple. We want to define an ambient isotopic…
A hidden gauge theory structure of quantum mechanics which is invisible in its conventional formulation is uncovered. Quantum mechanics is shown to be equivalent to a certain Yang-Mills theory with an infinite-dimensional gauge group and a…
The gauge symmetry of classical general relativity under space-time diffeomorphisms implies that any path integral quantization which can be interpreted as a sum over space-time geometries, gives rise to a formal invariant of smooth…
The configuration-space topology in canonical General Relativity depends on the choice of the initial data 3-manifold. If the latter is represented as a connected sum of prime 3-manifolds, the topology receives contributions from all…
One particular approach to quantum groups (matrix pseudo groups) provides the Manin quantum plane. Assuming an appropriate set of non-commuting variables spanning linearly a representation space one is able to show that the endomorphisms on…
We construct a canonical quantization of the two dimensional theory of a parametrized scalar field on noncompact spatial slices. The kinematics is built upon generalized charge-network states which are labelled by smooth embedding…
We describe the quasi-isometric classification of fundamental groups of irreducible non-geometric 3-manifolds which do not have "too many" arithmetic hyperbolic geometric components, thus completing the quasi-isometric classification of…
We prove that for every closed, connected, orientable, irreducible 3-manifold, there exists an alternating group A_n which is not the topological symmetry group of any graph embedded in the manifold. We also show that for every finite group…
The aim of this paper is to survey some aspects of mapping class groups with focus on their finite dimensional representations arising in topological quantum field theory.
Canonical quantum gravity provides insights into the quantum dynamics as well as quantum geometry of space-time by its implications for constraints. Loop quantum gravity in particular requires specific corrections due to its quantization…
In physics, two systems that radically differ at short scales can exhibit strikingly similar macroscopic behaviour: they are part of the same long-distance universality class. Here we apply this viewpoint to geometry and initiate a program…
A theory of finite type invariants for arbitrary compact oriented 3-manifolds is proposed, and illustrated through many examples arising from both classical and quantum topology. The theory is seen to be highly non-trivial even for…
The Gamma-class is a characteristic class for complex manifolds with transcendental coefficients. It defines an integral structure of quantum cohomology, or more precisely, an integral lattice in the space of flat sections of the quantum…
In this paper we construct a model for group field cosmology. The classical equations of motion for the non-interactive part of this model generate the Hamiltonian constraint of loop quantum gravity for a homogeneous isotropic universe…
We present a new model of quantum gravity as a theory of random geometries given explicitly in terms of a multitrace matrix model. This is a generalization of the usual discretized random surfaces of 2D quantum gravity which works away from…