Departamento de Gravitación y Teoría de Campos

                          Seminarios 2012

  

                          Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, UNAM
[ ICN-UNAM]

Jueves 2 de febrero, a las 17:00 hrs en la sala de seminarios del ICN

James Ryan (Albert Einstein Institute, Golm)

Discrete issues in quantum gravity

Lattice theories have long been advocated for their practicable nature: they possess a high energy cut-off and are well adapted to the development of both (non-perturbative) analytical and numerical tools. One would like to import these advantageous features to a quantum gravity theory. Moreover, given the seemingly intractable problems facing continuum quantization methods, it has been suggested that a discrete theory might provide a fundamental definition for the quantum theory at the outset; thence, quantum Regge calculus and spin foam models. In this talk, I shall concentrate on several facets of an issue at the heart of the (discrete) quantum gravity programme: the construction of a quantum measure (on the lattice), which is well-defined, diffeomorphism invariant and (rather importantly) usable.