Background-independent renormalization in quantum gravity models

by Benjamin Bahr (Hamburg U.)

Wednesday 4 Jun 2014, 14:30 → 15:30 Europe/Berlin

build. 2a, SR 2 (DESY Hamburg)

In this talk I will give an overview of the state sum models that have been proposed in recent years to define a path integral for quantum gravity in a non-perturbative and background-independent way. The form of these models is motivated from discrete gravity, so emphasis will lie on the questions of how to define a continuum limit, and in which way one should expect diffeomorphism symmetry (which plays the role of a gauge symmetry in classical GR) to arise in these models. A proposal for a background-independent formulation of renormalization group flow is presented, which does not require a notion of length scale, and which can be applied to these models. Time permitting, examples and numerical approximation methods will be presented as well.

Slides Talk-2014-10-Hamburg-Bahr.pdf