Related papers: Topological Combinatorics of a Quantized String Gr…
We have recently undergone an analysis of gravitational theories as defined in first order formalism, where the metric and the connection are treated as independent fields. The physical meaning of the connection field has historically been…
These notes review a description of quantum mechanics in terms of the topology of spaces, basing on the axioms of Topological Quantum Field Theory and path integral formalism. In this description quantum states and operators are encoded by…
This paper analyzes the effective field theory perspective on modern physics through the lens of the quantum theory of gravitational interaction. The historical part argues that the search for a theory of quantum gravity stimulated the…
We describe a topological string theory which reproduces many aspects of the 1/N expansion of SU(N) Yang-Mills theory in two spacetime dimensions in the zero coupling (A=0) limit. The string theory is a modified version of topological…
A connection between non-perturbative formulations of quantum gravity and perturbative string theory is exhibited, based on a formulation of the non-perturbative dynamics due to Markopoulou. In this formulation the dynamics of spin network…
A chain complex model for the free loop space of a connected, closed and oriented manifold is presented, and on its homology, the Gerstenhaber and Batalin-Vilkovisky algebra structures are defined and identified with the string topology…
Coupling any interacting quantum mechanical system to gravity in one dimension requires the cosmological constant to belong to the matter energy spectrum and thus to be quantized, even though the gravity sector is free of any quantum…
We consider functional-integral quantisation of the moduli of all quantum metrics defined as square-lengths $a$ on the edges of a Lorentzian square graph. We determine correlation functions and find a fixed relative uncertainty $\Delta…
I suggest the possibility that holographic quantum gravity is, in some sense, equivalent to quantum information theory. Some radical implications would follow. First, the theory of quantum gravity should have no adjustable coupling…
Quantum gravity was born as that branch of modern theoretical physics that tries to unify its guiding principles, i.e., quantum mechanics and general relativity. Nowadays it is providing new insight into the unification of all fundamental…
This paper is a contribution to the development of a framework, to be used in the context of semiclassical canonical quantum gravity, in which to frame questions about the correspondence between discrete spacetime structures at "quantum…
Topological quantum field theories containing matter fields are constructed by twisting $N=2$ supersymmetric quantum field theories. It is shown that $N=2$ chiral (antichiral) multiplets lead to topological sigma models while $N=2$ twisted…
It is argued that quantum states of geometry, like those of particles, should be coherent on light cones of any size. An exact classical solution, the gravitational shock wave of a relativistic point particle, is used to estimate…
Prominent approaches to quantum gravity struggle when it comes to incorporating a positive cosmological constant in their models. Using quantization of a complex $\mathrm{SL}(2,\mathbb{C})$ Chern-Simons theory we include a cosmological…
The study of toy models in loop quantum gravity (LQG), defined as truncations of the full theory, is relevant to both the development of the LQG phenomenology, in cosmology and astrophysics, and the progress towards the resolution of the…
We construct, in classical two-time physics, the necessary structure for the most general configuration space formulation of quantum mechanics containing gravity in d+2 dimensions. This structure is composed of a symmetric Riemannian metric…
Topologically massive gravity (TMG) in three dimensions provides an interesting toy model for constructing a quantum theory of gravity. Although it can be thought of as standing as a theory in its own right, it is also of interest to see…
In this article the geometry of quantum gravity is quantized in the sense of being noncommutative (first quantization) but it is also quantized in the sense of being emergent (second quantization). A new mechanism for quantum geometry is…
We obtain a bosonization prescription that allows to represent the energy-momentum tensor and supersymmetry generators of non-critical superstring theories with minimal matter as those of topological supergravity. Superstrings with $N=1$…
Topologically ordered quantum systems have robust physical properties, such as quasiparticle statistics and ground-state degeneracy, which do not depend on the microscopic details of the Hamiltonian. We consider topological phase…