Semiclassical quantum gravity: obtaining manifolds from graphs

DOI10.1088/0264-9381/26/24/245012zbMATH Open1181.83073arXiv0905.3492OpenAlexW3099761727WikidataQ57564351 ScholiaQ57564351MaRDI QIDQ3402087FDOQ3402087

Authors: Luca Bombelli, Alejandro Corichi, Oliver Winkler 

Publication date: 2 February 2010

Published in: Classical and Quantum Gravity (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We address the "inverse problem" for discrete geometry, which consists in determining whether, given a discrete structure of a type that does not in general imply geometrical information or even a topology, one can associate with it a unique manifold in an appropriate sense, and constructing the manifold when it exists. This problem arises in a variety of approaches to quantum gravity that assume a discrete structure at the fundamental level; the present work is motivated by the semiclassical sector of loop quantum gravity, so we will take the discrete structure to be a graph and the manifold to be a spatial slice in spacetime. We identify a class of graphs, those whose vertices have a fixed valence, for which such a construction can be specified. We define a procedure designed to produce a cell complex from a graph and show that, for graphs with which it can be carried out to completion, the resulting cell complex is in fact a PL-manifold. Graphs of our class for which the procedure cannot be completed either do not arise as edge graphs of manifold cell decompositions, or can be seen as cell decompositions of manifolds with structure at small scales (in terms of the cell spacing). We also comment briefly on how one can extend our procedure to more general graphs.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/0905.3492

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Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Einstein's equations (general structure, canonical formalism, Cauchy problems) (83C05) Quantization of the gravitational field (83C45) Lattice gravity, Regge calculus and other discrete methods in general relativity and gravitational theory (83C27)

Cited In (8)

• Homogeneous cosmologies as group field theory condensates
• Quantum cosmology from group field theory condensates: a review
• Semiclassical quantum gravity: statistics of combinatorial Riemannian geometries
• Towards anisotropic cosmology in group field theory
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Semiclassical states in quantum gravity: curvature associated to a Voronoi graph
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Quantum gravity states, entanglement graphs and second-quantized tensor networks

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