We apply the full theory of Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) to cosmology and present a top-down derivation of gauge-invariant cosmological perturbation theory from quantum gravity. The derivation employs the reduced phase space formulation of LQG and the new discrete path integral formulation defined in arXiv:1910.03763. We demonstrate that in the semiclassical approximation and continuum limit, the result coincides with the existing formulation of gauge-invariant cosmological perturbation theory in e.g. arXiv:0711.0117. Time evolution of cosmological perturbations is computed numerically from the new cosmological perturbation theory of LQG, and various power spectrums are studied for scalar mode and tensor mode perturbations. Comparing these power spectrums with predictions from the classical theory demonstrate corrections in the ultra-long wavelength regime. These corrections are results from the lattice discretization in LQG. In addition, tensor mode perturbations at late time demonstrate the emergence of spin-2 gravitons as low energy excitations from LQG. The graviton has a modified dispersion relation and reduces to the standard graviton in the long wavelength limit.
We present a manifestly local and general coordinate invariant formulation of a nonlocal approach to the cosmological constant problem which has been recently proposed by Carroll and Remmen. To do that, we need to introduce a topological term involving a new 3-form gauge field. The equations of motion for this new 3-form gauge field lead to a constant Lagrange multiplier parameter and the resulting action becomes equivalent to that of Carroll and Remmen. In our formulation, nonlocal informations are encoded via the procedure of taking the space-time average at the stage of the equations of mot…
Canonical quantization of gravity requires knowledge about the representation theory of its constraint algebra, which is physically equivalent to the algebra of arbitrary 4-diffeomorphisms. All interesting lowest-energy representations are projective, making the relevant algebra into a four-dimensional generalization of the Virasoro algebra. Such diffeomorphism anomalies are invisible in field theory, because the relevant cocycles are functionals of the observer's trajectory in spacetime. The multi-dimensional Virasoro algebra acts naturally in the phase space of arbitrary histories, with dyna…
The general relativistic perturbations of scalar-tensor theories (STT) of gravity are studied in a manifestly gauge invariant Hamiltonian formalism. After the derivation of the Hamiltonian equations of motion in this framework, the gauge invariant formalism is used to compute the evolution equations of linear perturbations around a general relativistic spacetime background in the Jordan frame. These equations are then specialized to the case of a flat FRW cosmological background. Furthermore, the equivalence between the Jordan frame and the Einstein frame of STT in the manifestly gauge invaria…
We construct a manifestly diffeomorphism invariant Wilsonian (Exact) Renormalization Group for classical gravity, and begin the construction for quantum gravity. We demonstrate that the effective action can be computed without gauge fixing the diffeomorphism invariance, and also without introducing a background space-time. We compute classical contributions both within a background-independent framework and by perturbing around a fixed background, and verify that the results are equivalent. We derive the exact Ward identities for actions and kernels and verify consistency. We formulate two for…
Physics in (canonical) quantum gravity needs to be manifestly diffeomorphism-invariant. Consequently, physical observables need to be formulated in terms of manifestly diffeomorphism-invariant operators, which are necessarily composite. This makes an evaluation in general involved, even if the concrete implementation of quantum gravity should be treatable (semi-)perturbatively in general. A mechanism developed by Fröhlich, Morchio and Strocchi for flat-space-time quantum field theory may also be applicable in this case. It may be possible to test this mechanism with methods like dynamical tria…
A trajectory-based representation for the quantum theory of the gravitational field is formulated. This is achieved in terms of a covariant Generalized Lagrangian-Path (GLP) approach which relies on a suitable statistical representation of Bohmian Lagrangian trajectories, referred to here as GLP-representation. The result is established in the framework of the manifestly-covariant quantum gravity theory (CQG-theory) proposed recently and the related CQG-wave equation advancing in proper-time the quantum state associated with massive gravitons. Generally non-stationary analytical solutions for …
After giving how to construct the gauge invariant perturbation variable in an arbitrarily high order and in the arbitrary background spacetime, we consider the manifestly gauge invariant theory of the cosmological perturbations in the long wavelength limit with the spatially flat homogeneous isotropic universe being the background spacetime. In the previous paper, the physical laws become manifestly gauge invariant, by writing them in terms of only the single time background/scalar like objects. In the present paper, by extending our definition of the background/scalar like objects from the si…
It is shown that a first-order cosmological perturbation theory for the open, flat and closed Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker universes admits one, and only one, gauge-invariant variable which describes the perturbation to the energy density and which becomes equal to the usual Newtonian energy density in the non-relativistic limit. The same holds true for the perturbation to the particle number density. Using these two new variables, a new manifestly gauge-invariant cosmological perturbation theory has been developed. Density perturbations evolve diabatically. Perturbations in the total e…
Loop quantum gravity, a non-perturbative and manifestly background free, quantum theory of gravity implies that at the kinematical level the spatial geometry is discrete in a specific sense. The spirit of background independence also requires a non-standard quantum representation of matter. While loop quantization of standard model fields has been proposed, detail study of its implications is not yet available. This review aims to survey the various efforts and results.
We discuss in this Chapter a series of theoretical developments which motivate the introduction of a quantum evolution equation for which the eikonal approximation results in the geodesics of a four dimensional manifold. This geodesic motion can be put into correspondence with general relativity. One obtains in this way a quantum theory on a flat spacetime, obeying the rules of the standard quantum theory in Lorentz covariant form, with a spacetime dependent Lorentz tensor $g_{μν}$, somewhat analogous to a gauge field, coupling to the kinetic terms. Since the geodesics predicted by the eikonal…
Canonical gravity in real Ashtekar-Barbero variables is generalized to allow for fermionic matter. The resulting torsion changes several expressions in Holst's original vacuum analysis, which are summarized here. This in turn requires adaptations to the known loop quantization of gravity coupled to fermions, which is discussed on the basis of the classical analysis. As a result, parity invariance is not manifestly realized in loop quantum gravity.
Cosmological perturbation equations derived from low-energy effective actions are shown to be invariant under a duality transformation reminiscent of electric-magnetic, strong-weak coupling, S-duality. A manifestly duality-invariant approximation for perturbations far outside the horizon is introduced, and it is argued to be useful even during a high curvature epoch. Duality manifests itself through a remnant symmetry acting on the classical moduli of cosmological models, and implying lower bounds on the number and energy density of produced particles.
We present a manifestly local, diffeomorphism invariant and locally Poincare invariant formulation of vacuum energy sequestering. In this theory, quantum vacuum energy generated by matter loops is cancelled by auxiliary fields. The auxiliary fields decouple from gravity almost completely. Their only residual effect is an a priori arbitrary, finite contribution to the curvature of the background geometry, which is radiatively stable. Its value is to be determined by a measurement, like the finite part of any radiatively stable UV-sensitive quantity in quantum field theory.
A manifestly diffeomorphism-invariant approach to canonical quantum gravity requires to use composite operators. These can be considered to be bound states of matter and/or gravitons, intrinsically non-perturbative objects. An analytical approach to determine the properties of such bound states could be the Fröhlich-Morchio-Strocchi mechanism. We explore the necessary technology by applying it to various $n$-point functions, including geon propagators and black-hole-particle vertices.
Reduced phase space formulation of CGHS model of 2d dilaton gravity is studied in en extrinsic time gauge. The corresponding Hamiltonian can be promoted into a Hermitian operator acting in the physical Hilbert space, implying a unitary evolution for the system. Consequences for the black hole physics are discussed. In particular, this manifestly unitary theory rules out the Hawking scenario for the endpoint of the black hole evaporation process.
This thesis concerns research undertaken in two related topics concerning high-energy gravitational physics. The first is the construction of a manifestly diffeomorphism-invariant Exact Renormalization Group (ERG). This is a procedure that constructs effective theories of gravity by integrating out high-energy modes down to an ultraviolet cutoff scale without gauge-fixing. The manifest diffeomorphism invariance enables us to construct a fully background-independent formulation. This thesis will explore both the fixed-background and background-independent forms of the manifestly diffeomorphism-…
Cartan's spacetime reformulation of the Newtonian theory of gravity is a generally-covariant Galilean-relativistic limit-form of Einstein's theory of gravity known as the Newton-Cartan theory. According to this theory, space is flat, time is absolute with instantaneous causal influences, and the degenerate `metric' structure of spacetime remains fixed with two mutually orthogonal non-dynamical metrics, one spatial and the other temporal. The spacetime according to this theory is, nevertheless, curved, duly respecting the principle of equivalence, and the non-metric gravitational connection-fie…
External gravitational fields induce phase factors in the wave functions of particles. The phases are exact to first order in the background gravitational field, are manifestly covariant and gauge invariant and provide a useful tool for the study of spin-gravity coupling and of the optics of particles in gravitational or inertial fields. We discuss the role that spin-gravity coupling plays in particular problems.
We revisit the manifestly covariant large $c$ expansion of General Relativity, $c$ being the speed of light. Assuming the relativistic connection has no pole in $c^{-2}$, this expansion is known to reproduce Newton-Cartan gravity and a covariant version of Post-Newtonian corrections to it. We show that relaxing this assumption leads to the inclusion of twistless torsion in the effective non-relativistic theory. We argue that the resulting TTNC theory is an effective description of a non-relativistic regime of General Relativity that extends Newtonian physics by including strong gravitational t…
We study the background scale independence in single-metric approximation to the functional renormalization group equation (FRGE) for quantum gravity and show that it is possible to formulate it without using higher-derivative gauge fixing in arbitrary dimensions if we adopt the Landau gauge and suitable cutoff scheme. We discuss this problem for both the linear and exponential splits of the metric into background and fluctuations. The obtained modified Ward identity for the global rescalings of the background metric can be combined with the FRGE to give a manifestly scale-invariant solution. …
The aim of this article is to understand the role of dust reference fields, often also called clocks, on cosmological perturbations around a flat FLRW universe. We derive the Mukhanov-Sasaki (MS) equation for the Brown-Kuchar (BK) and Gaussian dust models, which both consider four dust fields as reference fields. The reduced phase space of Dirac observables, that is the gauge-invariant part of the theory, is constructed by means of an observable map applied to all elementary phase space variables of the coupled system, consisting of gravity, a massive scalar field and the dust degrees of freed…
We have recently presented a manifestly local and general coordinate invariant formulation of a nonlocal approach to the cosmological constant problem which has been proposed by Carroll and Remmen. In this article, based on our formulation, we investigate some quantum aspects of this approach to the cosmological constant problem. In particular, we explicitly evaluate quantum effects to the effective cosmological constant from matter fields at one-loop level, and show that the effective cosmological constant receives radiative corrections and is not stable against quantum corrections so that it…
We consider noncommutative gravity on a space with canonical noncommutativity that is based on the commutative MacDowell-Mansouri action. Gravity is treated as gauge theory of the noncommutative $SO(1,3)_\star$ group and the Seiberg-Witten (SW) map is used to express noncommutative fields in terms of the corresponding commutative fields. In the commutative limit the noncommutative action reduces to the Einstein-Hilbert action plus the cosmological term and the topological Gauss-Bonnet term. After the SW expansion in the noncommutative parameter the first order correction to the action, as expe…
Modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) can be obtained by modifying the entropic formulation of gravity, this is achieved by considering the quantum statistical nature of the degrees of freedom on the holographic screen. Through this frame work, we find some constraints on a cosmological extension for MOND, with no additional auxiliary fields. The connections between MOND to conformal gravity and Rindler force gravity are examined. These two alternative gravity theories are subsequently considered as possible cosmological extensions of MOND.
Recently a new extended nonlinear massive gravity model has been proposed which includes the $F(R)$ modifications to dRGT model.We follow the $F(R)$ nonlinear massive gravity and study its implications on cosmological evolutions. We derive the critical points of the cosmic system and study the corresponding kinetics by performing the phase-plane analysis.
Linear cosmological perturbation theory is pivotal to a theoretical understanding of current cosmological experimental data provided e.g. by cosmic microwave anisotropy probes. A key issue in that theory is to extract the gauge invariant degrees of freedom which allow unambiguous comparison between theory and experiment. When one goes beyond first (linear) order, the task of writing the Einstein equations expanded to n'th order in terms of quantities that are gauge invariant up to terms of higher orders becomes highly non-trivial and cumbersome. This fact has prevented progress for instance on…
In our companion paper we identified a complete set of manifestly gauge-invariant observables for general relativity. This was possible by coupling the system of gravity and matter to pressureless dust which plays the role of a dynamically coupled observer. The evolution of those observables is governed by a physical Hamiltonian and we derived the corresponding equations of motion. Linear perturbation theory of those equations of motion around a general exact solution in terms of manifestly gauge invariant perturbations was then developed. In this paper we specialise our previous results to an…
Recently, Horava and Melby-Thompson proposed in arXiv:1007.2410 a nonrelativistic gravity theory with extended gauge symmetry that is free of the spin-0 graviton. We propose a minimal substitution recipe to implement this extended gauge symmetry which reproduce the results obtained by them. Our prescription has the advantage of being manifestly gauge invariant and immediately generalizable to other fields, like matter. We briefly discuss the coupling of gravity with scalar and vector fields found by our method. We show also that the extended gauge invariance in gravity does not force the value…
Anisotropic exponential cosmological solutions for a space of arbitrary dimension filled with ordinary matter in the 4th and 5th orders of Lovelock gravity are obtained. Also we have supposed a generalization of such solutions on an arbitrary order. All the solutions are represented as a set of conditions on Hubble parameters.
In this paper we present an alternative cosmological extension of the three-dimensional extended Newtonian Chern-Simons gravity by switching on the torsion. The theory is obtained as a non-relativistic limit of an enhancement and $U(1)$-enlargement of the so-called teleparallel algebra and can be seen as the teleparallel analogue of the Newtonian gravity theory. The infinite-dimensional extension of our result is also explored through the Lie algebra expansion method. An infinite-dimensional torsional Galilean gravity model is presented which in the vanishing cosmological constant limit reprod…
We study the condition for the consistency of the Gödel metric with the dynamical Chern-Simons modified gravity. It turns out to be that this compatibility can be achieved only if the cosmological constant is variable in the space.
We give a new formula for all tree-level correlators of boundary field insertions in gauged N=8 supergravity in AdS_4; this is an analog of the tree-level S-matrix in anti-de Sitter space. The formula is written in terms of rational maps from the Riemann sphere to twistor space, with no reference to bulk perturbation theory. It is polynomial in the cosmological constant, and equal to the classical scattering amplitudes of supergravity in the flat space limit. The formula is manifestly supersymmetric, independent of gauge choices on twistor space, and equivalent to expressions computed via pert…
Defining a new r-matrix compatible with the scalar product at the basis of the Chern-Simons action for a particle coupled to (2+1) Lorentzian gravity with cosmological constant, I show how deformed symmetries of $κ$-de Sitter and, in the vanishing cosmological limit, of $κ$-Poincaré kind, arise naturally as quantum-deformation of three dimensional gravity. I obtain moreover the non-commutative spacetime associated to these kinds of symmetries.
We investigate Bianchi I cosmological model in the theory of a dilatonM field coupled to gravity through a Gauss-Bonnet term. Two type ofM cosmological singularity are distinguished. The former is analogous toM the Einstein gravity singularity, the latter (which does not appear inM classical General Relativity) occurs when the main determinant of theM system of field equations vanishes. An analogy between the latterM cosmological singularity and the singularity inside a black hole withM a dilatonic hair is discussed. Initial conditions, leading to theseM two types of cosmological singularity a…
In the investigation and resolution of the cosmological constant problem the inclusion of the dynamics of quantum gravity can be a crucial step. In this work we suggest that the quantum constraints in a canonical theory of gravity can provide a way of addressing the issue: we consider the case of two-dimensional quantum dilaton gravity non-minimally coupled to a U(1) gauge field, in the presence of an arbitrary number of massless scalar matter fields, intended also as an effective description of highly symmetrical higher-dimensional models. We are able to quantize the system non-perturbatively…
A finite and unitary nonlocal formulation of quantum gravity is applied to the cosmological constant problem. The entire functions in momentum space at the graviton-standard model particle loop vertices generate an exponential suppression of the vacuum density and the cosmological constant to produce agreement with their observational bounds.
In this contribution, classes of shear-free cosmological dust models with irrotational fluid flows will be investigated in the context of scalar-tensor theories of gravity. In particular, the integrability conditions describing a consistent evolution of the linearised field equations of quasi-Newtonian universes are presented. We also derive the covariant density and velocity propagation equations of such models and analyse the corresponding solutions to these perturbation equations.
In the dimensionally reduced model of the 2+1 dimensional cosmological massive gravity, we obtain the central charges of the two types of the black hole based on the entropy function method. One is for the BTZ black hole and the other one is actually for the warped AdS$_3$ black hole.
We use the non-Gaussian fixed points (NGFPs) appearing in the renormalization group flow of gravity and gravity-matter systems to construct models of NGFP-driven inflation via a renormalization group improvement scheme. The cosmological predictions of these models depend sensitively on the characteristic properties of the NGFPs, including their position and stability coefficients, which in turn are determined by the field content of the underlying matter sector. We demonstrate that the NGFPs appearing in gravity-matter systems where the matter content is close to the one of the standard model …
We study gravitational waves generated during the inflationary epoch in presence of a decaying cosmological parameter on a 5D geometrical background which is Riemann flat. Two examples are considered, one with a constant cosmological parameter and the second with a decreasing one.
Two gauge and diffeomorphism invariant theories on the Yang-Mills phase space are studied. They are based on the Lie-algebras $so(1,3)$ and $\widetilde{so(3)}$ -- the loop-algebra of $so(3)$. Although the theories are manifestly real, they can both be reformulated to show that they describe complex gravity and an infinite number of copies of complex gravity, respectively. The connection to real gravity is given. For these theories, the reality conditions in the conventional Ashtekar formulation are represented by normal constraint-like terms.
The kinematics of loop gravity can be given a manifestly Lorentz-covariant formulation: the conventional SU(2)-spin-network Hilbert space can be mapped to a space K of SL(2,C) functions, where Lorentz covariance is manifest. K can be described in terms of a certain subset of the "projected" spin networks studied by Livine, Alexandrov and Dupuis. It is formed by SL(2,C) functions completely determined by their restriction on SU(2). These are square-integrable in the SU(2) scalar product, but not in the SL(2,C) one. Thus, SU(2)-spin-network states can be represented by Lorentz-covariant SL(2,C) …
Key aspects of the manifestly-covariant theory of quantum gravity (Cremaschini and Tessarotto 2015-2017) are investigated. These refer, first, to the establishment of the 4-scalar, manifestly-covariant evolution quantum wave equation, denoted as covariant quantum gravity (CQG) wave equation, which advances the quantum state $ψ$ associated with a prescribed background space-time. In this paper, the CQG-wave equation is proved to follow at once by means of a Hamilton-Jacobi quantization of the classical variational tensor field $g\equiv \left\{ g_{μν}\right\} $ and its conjugate momentum, referr…
A manifestly diffeomorphism invariant extension of Einstein gravity is constructed, which includes singular metrics, and whose ADM formulation is Ashtekar's gravity. The latter is shown to be locally equivalent to the covariant theory. It turns out that exactly those kinds of degenerate four dimensional metrics are allowed which do not destroy the causal structure of spacetime. It is also shown that Ashtekar's gravity possesses an extension that provides a local SO(3,C) invariance, without complexifying or changing the signature of the metric.
It is shown that introducing the quantum effects using deBroglie--Bohm theory in the canonical formulation of gravity would change the constraints algebra. The new algebra is derived and shown that it is the clear projection of general coordinate transformations to the spatial and temporal diffeomorphisms. The quantum Einstein's equations are derived and it is shown that they are manifestly covariant under the above diffeomorphisms, as it would be.
We address issues on the origin of gravity and the cosmological constant problem based on a recent understanding about the correspondence between noncommutative field theory and gravity. We suggest that the cosmological constant problem can be resolved in a natural way if gravity emerges from a gauge theory in noncommutative spacetime. Especially, we elucidate why the emergent gravity implies that vacuum energy does not gravitate but only fluctuations around the vacuum generate gravity. That is, a flat spacetime emerges from uniform condensation of energy, previously identified with the cosmol…
A challenging issue in General Relativity concerns the determination of the manifestly-covariant continuum Hamiltonian structure underlying the Einstein field equations and the related formulation of the corresponding covariant Hamilton-Jacobi theory. The task is achieved by adopting a synchronous variational principle requiring distinction between the prescribed deterministic metric tensor $\widehat{g}(r)\equiv \left\{ \widehat{g}_{μν}(r)\right\} $ solution of the Einstein field equations which determines the geometry of the background space-time and suitable variational fields $x\equiv \left…
We examine the general issue of whether a scale dependent cosmological constant can be consistent with general covariance, a problem that arises naturally in the treatment of quantum gravitation where coupling constants generally run as a consequence of renormalization group effects. The issue is approached from several points of view, which include the manifestly covariant functional integral formulation, covariant continuum perturbation theory about two dimensions, the lattice formulation of gravity, and the non-local effective action and effective field equation methods. In all cases we fin…
This brief contribution is devoted to phenomenological consequences of deviations from Lorentz invariance in gravity and dark matter. We will discuss main effects on cosmological observables and current constraints derived from astrophysical and cosmological data.
We construct effective field theories in which gravity is modified via spontaneous breaking of local Lorentz invariance. This is a gravitational analogue of the Higgs mechanism. These theories possess additional graviton modes and modified dispersion relations. They are manifestly well-behaved in the UV and free of discontinuities of the van Dam-Veltman-Zakharov type, ensuring compatibility with standard tests of gravity. They may have important phenomenological effects on large distance scales, offering an alternative to dark energy. For the case in which the symmetry is broken by a vector fi…
We investigate some cosmological models arising from a non-minimal coupling of a fermionic field to gravity in the geometrical setting of Einstein-Cartan-Sciama-Kibble gravity. The role played by the non-minimal coupling together with torsion in facing problems such as cosmological singularity, inflation and dark energy is discussed.
