Jonathan Engle

Quantum horizons and black-hole entropy: inclusion of distortion and rotation

Equilibrium states of black holes can be modelled by isolated horizons. If the intrinsic geometry is spherical, they are called type I while if it is axi-symmetric, they are called type II. The detailed theory of the geometry of quantum type I horizons and the calculation of their entropy can be generalized to type II, thereby including arbitrary distortions and rotations. The leading term in entropy of large horizons is again given by 1/4th of the horizon area for the same value of the Barbero–Immirzi parameter as in the type I case. Ideas and constructions underlying this extension are summarized.

Asymptotics and Hamiltonians in a first-order formalism

We consider four-dimensional spacetimes which are asymptotically flat at spatial infinity and show that, in the first-order framework, the action principle for general relativity is well defined without the need of infinite counter terms. It naturally leads to a covariant phase space in which the Hamiltonians generating asymptotic symmetries provide the total energy–momentum and angular momentum of the spacetime. We address the subtle but important problems that arise because of logarithmic translations and super translations both in the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian frameworks. As a forthcoming paper will show, the treatment of higher dimensions is considerably simpler. Our first-order framework also suggests a new direction for generalizing the spectral action of non-commutative geometry.

Quantum field theory and its symmetry reduction

The relation between symmetry reduction before and after quantization of a field theory is discussed using a toy model: the axisymmetric Klein–Gordon field. We consider three possible notions of symmetry at the quantum level: invariance under the group action, and two notions derived from imposing symmetry as a system of constraints in the manner of Dirac, reformulated as a first class system. One of the latter two turns out to be the most appropriate notion of symmetry in the sense that it satisfies a number of physical criteria, including the commutativity of quantization and symmetry reduction. Somewhat surprisingly, the requirement of invariance under the symmetry group action is not appropriate for this purpose. A generalization of the physically selected notion of symmetry to loop quantum gravity is presented and briefly discussed.

Embedding loop quantum cosmology without piecewise linearity

An important goal is to understand better the relation between full loop quantum gravity (LQG) and the simplified, reduced theory known as loop quantum cosmology (LQC), directly at the quantum level. Such a firmer understanding would increase confidence in the reduced theory as a tool for formulating predictions of the full theory, as well as permitting lessons from the reduced theory to guide further development in the full theory. This paper constructs an embedding of the usual state space of LQC into that of standard LQG, that is, LQG based on piecewise analytic paths. The embedding is well defined even prior to solving the diffeomorphism constraint, at no point is a graph fixed and at no point is the piecewise linear category used. This motivates for the first time a definition of operators in LQC corresponding to holonomies along non-piecewise linear paths, without changing the usual kinematics of LQC in any way. The new embedding intertwines all operators corresponding to such holonomies, and all elements in its image satisfy an operator equation which classically implies homogeneity and isotropy. The construction is made possible by a recent result proven by Fleischhack. Communicated by P Singh

Piecewise linear loop quantum gravity

We define a modification of loop quantum gravity (LQG) in which graphs are required to consist of piecewise linear edges, which we call piecewise linear LQG (plLQG). At the diffeomorphism-invariant level, we prove that plLQG is equivalent to standard LQG, as long as one chooses the class of diffeomorphisms appropriately. That is, we exhibit a unitary map between the diffeomorphism-invariant Hilbert spaces that maps physically equivalent operators into each other. In addition, using the same ideas as in standard LQG, one can define a Hamiltonian and master constraint in plLQG, and the unitary map between plLQG and LQG then provides an exact isomorphism of dynamics in the two frameworks. Furthermore, loop quantum cosmology (LQC) can be exactly embedded into plLQG. This allows a prior program of the author to embed LQC into LQG at the dynamical level to proceed. In particular, this allows a formal expression for a physically motivated embedding of LQC into LQG at the diffeomorphism-invariant level to be given.

Kinematical uniqueness of homogeneous isotropic LQC

In a paper by Ashtekar and Campiglia, invariance under volume preserving residual diffeomorphisms has been used to single out the standard representation of the reduced holonomy-flux algebra in homogeneous loop quantum cosmology (LQC). In this paper, we use invariance under all residual diffeomorphisms to single out the standard kinematical Hilbert space of homogeneous isotropic LQC for both the standard configuration space , as well as for the Fleischhack one . We first determine the scale invariant Radon measures on these spaces, and then show that the Haar measure on is the only such measure for which the momentum operator is hermitian w.r.t. the corresponding inner product. In particular, the measure is forced to be identically zero on in the Fleischhack case, so that for both approaches, the standard kinematical LQC-Hilbert space is singled out.

Purely geometric path integral for spin-foams

Spin-foams are a proposal for defining the dynamics of loop quantum gravity via path integral. In order for a path integral to be at least formally equivalent to the corresponding canonical quantization, at each point in the space of histories it is important that the integrand have not only the correct phase—a topic of recent focus in spin-foams—but also the correct modulus, usually referred to as the measure factor. The correct measure factor descends from the Liouville measure on the reduced phase space, and its calculation is a task of canonical analysis. The covariant formulation of gravity from which spin-foams are derived is the Plebanski–Holst formulation, in which the basic variables are a Lorentz connection and a Lorentz-algebra valued 2-form, called the Plebanski 2-form. However, in the final spin-foam sum, one usually sums over only spins and intertwiners, which label eigenstates of the Plebanski 2-form alone. The spin-foam sum is therefore a discretized version of a Plebanski–Holst path integral in which only the Plebanski 2-form appears, and in which the connection degrees of freedom have been integrated out. We call this a purely geometric Plebanski–Holst path integral. In prior work in which one of the authors was involved, the measure factor for the Plebanski–Holst path integral with both connection and 2-form variables was calculated. Before one discretizes this measure and incorporates it into a spin-foam sum, however, one must integrate out the connection in order to obtain the purely geometric version of the path integral. To calculate this purely geometric path integral is the principal task of the present paper, and it is done in two independent ways. Background independence of the resulting path integral is discussed in the final section, and gauge-fixing is discussed in appendix B.