70 research outputs found
Quantum Gravity as a Deformed Topological Quantum Field Theory
It is known that the Einstein-Hilbert action with a positive cosmological
constant can be represented as a perturbation of the SO(4,1) BF theory by a
symmetry-breaking term quadratic in the B field. Introducing fermionic matter
generates additional terms in the action which are polynomial in the tetrads
and the spin connection. We describe how to construct the generating functional
in the spin foam formalism for a generic BF theory when the sources for the B
and the gauge field are present. This functional can be used to obtain a path
integral for General Relativity with matter as a perturbative series whose the
lowest order term is a path integral for a topological gravity coupled to
matter.Comment: 7 pages, talk presented at the QG05 conference, 12-16 September 2005,
Cala Gonone, Ital
The linearization of the Kodama state
We study the question of whether the linearization of the Kodama state around
classical deSitter spacetime is normalizable in the inner product of the theory
of linearized gravitons on deSitter spacetime. We find the answer is no in the
Lorentzian theory. However, in the Euclidean theory the corresponding
linearized Kodama state is delta-functional normalizable. We discuss whether
this result invalidates the conjecture that the full Kodama state is a good
physical state for quantum gravity with positive cosmological constant.Comment: 14 pages, statement on the corresponding Yang-Mills case correcte
Relative locality: A deepening of the relativity principle
We describe a recently introduced principle of relative locality which we
propose governs a regime of quantum gravitational phenomena accessible to
experimental investigation. This regime comprises phenomena in which
and may be neglected, while their ratio, the Planck mass , is important. We propose that governs the scale at
which momentum space may have a curved geometry. We find that there are
striking consequences for the concept of locality. The description of events in
spacetime now depends on the energy used to probe it. But there remains an
invariant description of physics in phase space. There is furthermore a
reasonable expectation that the geometry of momentum space can be measured
experimentally using astrophysical observations.Comment: 8 pages, Latex; this essay was awarded Second Prize in the 2011 Essay
Competition of the Gravity Research Foundatio
Ponzano-Regge model revisited III: Feynman diagrams and Effective field theory
We study the no gravity limit G_{N}-> 0 of the Ponzano-Regge amplitudes with
massive particles and show that we recover in this limit Feynman graph
amplitudes (with Hadamard propagator) expressed as an abelian spin foam model.
We show how the G_{N} expansion of the Ponzano-Regge amplitudes can be
resummed. This leads to the conclusion that the dynamics of quantum particles
coupled to quantum 3d gravity can be expressed in terms of an effective new non
commutative field theory which respects the principles of doubly special
relativity. We discuss the construction of Lorentzian spin foam models
including Feynman propagatorsComment: 46 pages, the wrong file was first submitte
Relative Locality in -Poincar\'e
We show that the -Poincar\'e Hopf algebra can be interpreted in the
framework of curved momentum space leading to the relativity of locality
\cite{AFKS}. We study the geometric properties of the momentum space described
by -Poincar\'e, and derive the consequences for particles propagation
and energy-momentum conservation laws in interaction vertices, obtaining for
the first time a coherent and fully workable model of the deformed relativistic
kinematics implied by -Poincar\'e. We describe the action of boost
transformations on multi-particles systems, showing that in order to keep
covariant the composed momenta it is necessary to introduce a dependence of the
rapidity parameter on the particles momenta themselves. Finally, we show that
this particular form of the boost transformations keeps the validity of the
relativity principle, demonstrating the invariance of the equations of motion
under boost transformations.Comment: 24 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. v2 matches accepted CQG versio
Hamiltonian analysis of SO(4,1) constrained BF theory
In this paper we discuss canonical analysis of SO(4,1) constrained BF theory.
The action of this theory contains topological terms appended by a term that
breaks the gauge symmetry down to the Lorentz subgroup SO(3,1). The equations
of motion of this theory turn out to be the vacuum Einstein equations. By
solving the B field equations one finds that the action of this theory contains
not only the standard Einstein-Cartan term, but also the Holst term
proportional to the inverse of the Immirzi parameter, as well as a combination
of topological invariants. We show that the structure of the constraints of a
SO(4,1) constrained BF theory is exactly that of gravity in Holst formulation.
We also briefly discuss quantization of the theory.Comment: 9 page
Hamiltonian Analysis of non-chiral Plebanski Theory and its Generalizations
We consider non-chiral, full Lorentz group-based Plebanski formulation of
general relativity in its version that utilizes the Lagrange multiplier field
Phi with "internal" indices. The Hamiltonian analysis of this version of the
theory turns out to be simpler than in the previously considered in the
literature version with Phi carrying spacetime indices. We then extend the
Hamiltonian analysis to a more general class of theories whose action contains
scalars invariants constructed from Phi. Such theories have recently been
considered in the context of unification of gravity with other forces. We show
that these more general theories have six additional propagating degrees of
freedom as compared to general relativity, something that has not been
appreciated in the literature treating them as being not much different from
GR.Comment: 10 page
Disordered locality in loop quantum gravity states
We show that loop quantum gravity suffers from a potential problem with
non-locality, coming from a mismatch between micro-locality, as defined by the
combinatorial structures of their microscopic states, and macro-locality,
defined by the metric which emerges from the low energy limit. As a result, the
low energy limit may suffer from a disordered locality characterized by
identifications of far away points. We argue that if such defects in locality
are rare enough they will be difficult to detect.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, revision with extended discussion of result
Fractal Structure of Loop Quantum Gravity
In this paper we have calculated the spectral dimension of loop quantum
gravity (LQG) using simple arguments coming from the area spectrum at different
length scales. We have obtained that the spectral dimension of the spatial
section runs from 2 to 3, across a 1.5 phase, when the energy of a probe scalar
field decrees from high to low energy. We have calculated the spectral
dimension of the space-time also using results from spin-foam models, obtaining
a 2-dimensional effective manifold at hight energy. Our result is consistent
with other two approach to non perturbative quantum gravity: causal dynamical
triangulation and asymptotic safety quantum gravity.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
Cosmological Deformation of Lorentzian Spin Foam Models
We study the quantum deformation of the Barrett-Crane Lorentzian spin foam
model which is conjectured to be the discretization of Lorentzian Plebanski
model with positive cosmological constant and includes therefore as a
particular sector quantum gravity in de-Sitter space. This spin foam model is
constructed using harmonic analysis on the quantum Lorentz group. The
evaluation of simple spin networks are shown to be non commutative integrals
over the quantum hyperboloid defined as a pile of fuzzy spheres. We show that
the introduction of the cosmological constant removes all the infrared
divergences: for any fixed triangulation, the integration over the area
variables is finite for a large class of normalization of the amplitude of the
edges and of the faces.Comment: 37 pages, 7 figures include
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