Related papers: Recent Conceptual Consequences of Loop Quantum Gra…
Because of the non-locality of quantum entanglement, realist approaches to completing quantum mechanics have implications for our conception of space. Quantum gravity also is expected to predict phenomena in which the locality of classical…
General relativity successfully describes space-times at scales that we can observe and probe today, but it cannot be complete as a consequence of singularity theorems. For a long time there have been indications that quantum gravity will…
`How do our ideas about quantum mechanics affect our understanding of spacetime?' This familiar question leads to quantum gravity. The complementary question is also important: `How do our ideas about spacetime affect our understanding of…
General relativity promotes space-time to a physical, dynamical object subject to equations of motion. Quantum gravity, accordingly, must provide a quantum framework for space-time, applicable on the smallest distance scales. Just like…
It is the goal of this article to extend the notion of quantization from the standard interpretation focused on non-commuting observables defined starting from classical analogues, to the topological equivalents defined in terms of…
In any attempt to build a quantum theory of gravity, a central issue is to unravel the structure of space-time at the smallest scale. Of particular relevance is the possible definition of coordinate functions within the theory and the study…
The present thesis is divided into two main research areas: Classical Cosmology and (Loop) Quantum Gravity. The first part concerns cosmological models with one phantom and one scalar field, that provide the `super-accelerated' scenario not…
This paper elaborates on an intrinsically quantum approach to gravity, which begins with a general framework for quantum mechanics and then seeks to identify additional mathematical structure on Hilbert space that is responsible for gravity…
The goal of this article is to provide an overview of the current state of the art in loop quantum cosmology for three sets of audiences: young researchers interested in entering this area; the quantum gravity community in general; and,…
We discuss a new approach to the problem of quantum gravity in which the quantum mechanical structures that are traditionally fixed, such as the Fubini-Study metric in the Hilbert space of states, become dynamical and so implement the idea…
Contemporary research programs in fundamental physics appear to suggest that there could be two (physical) times---or none at all. This essay articulates these possibilities in the context of quantum gravity, and in particular of…
After the development of a self-consistent quantum formalism nearly a century ago there began a quest for how to interpret the theoretical constructs of the formalism. In fact, the pursuit of new interpretations of quantum mechanics…
I describe a possible perspective on the current state of loop quantum gravity, at the light of the developments of the last years. I point out that a theory is now available, having a well-defined background-independent kinematics and a…
We review some aspects of quantum gravity in the context of cosmology. In particular, we focus on models with a phenomenology accessible to current and near-future observations, as the early Universe might be our only chance to peep through…
We will highlight that despite there being various approaches to quantum gravity, there are universal approach-independent features of quantum gravity. The geometry of spacetime becomes an emergent structure, which emerges from some purely…
We discuss how a cyclic model for the flat universe can be constructively derived from Loop Quantum Gravity. This model has a lower bounce, at small values of the scale factor, which shares many similarities with that of Loop Quantum…
An out of the box intellectual path exploring the foundations of quantum mechanics is discussed in some detail, in order to clarify why a possibly different way to look at the relevant fundamental questions can be identified and can support…
We use the method of embedding a subsystem (i.e. its observable algebra) into a larger quantum system to extract a cosmological sector from full Loop Quantum Gravity. The application of this method provides a setting for a systematic study…
Any canonical quantum theory can be understood to arise from the compatibility of the statistical geometry of distinguishable observations with the canonical Poisson structure of Hamiltonian dynamics. This geometric perspective offers a…
The new orthodoxy of quantum mechanics (QM) based on the decoherence approach requires many-worlds as an essential ingredient for logical consistency, and one may wonder what status to give to all these "other worlds". Here we advocate that…