Classical and Quantum Physical Geometry

A discursive, non-technical, analysis is made of some of the basic issues that arise in almost any approach to quantum gravity, and of how these issues stand in relation to recent developments in the field. Specific topics include the applicability of the conceptual and mathematical structures of both classical general relativity and standard quantum theory. This discussion is preceded by a short history of the last twenty-five years of research in quantum gravity, and conclu...

The geometro-stochastic method of quantization provides a framework for quantum general relativity, in which the principal frame bundles of local Lorentz frames that underlie the fibre-theoretical approach to classical general relativity are replaced by Poincar\'e-covariant quantum frame bundles. In the semiclassical regime for quantum field theory in curved spacetime, where the gravitational field is not quantized, the elements of these local quantum frames are generalized c...

Points of conflict between the principles of general relativity and quantum theory are highlighted. I argue that the current language of QFT is inadequete to deal with gravity and review attempts to identify some of the features which are likely to present in the correct theory of quantum gravity.

Quantum geometrodynamics is canonical quantum gravity with the three-metric as the configuration variable. Its central equation is the Wheeler--DeWitt equation. Here I give an overview of the status of this approach. The issues discussed include the problem of time, the relation to the covariant theory, the semiclassical approximation as well as applications to black holes and cosmology. I conclude that quantum geometrodynamics is still a viable approach and provides insights...

We explain how quantum gravity can be defined by quantizing spacetime itself. A pinpoint is that the gravitational constant G = L_P^2 whose physical dimension is of (length)^2 in natural unit introduces a symplectic structure of spacetime which causes a noncommutative spacetime at the Planck scale L_P. The symplectic structure of spacetime M leads to an isomorphism between symplectic geometry (M, \omega) and Riemannian geometry (M, g) where the deformations of symplectic stru...

I briefly review the current status of quantum gravity. After giving some general motivations for the need of such a theory, I discuss the main approaches in quantizing general relativity: Covariant approaches (perturbation theory, effective theory, and path integrals) and canonical approaches (quantum geometrodynamics, loop quantum gravity). I then address quantum gravitational aspects of string theory. This is followed by a discussion of black holes and quantum cosmology. I...

The existing approaches to quantization of gravity aim at giving quantum description of 3-geometry following to the ideas of the Wheeler -- DeWitt geometrodynamics. In this description the role of gauge gravitational degrees of freedom is missed. A probable alternative is to consider gravitational dynamics in extended phase space, taking into account the distinctions between General Relativity and other field theories. The formulation in extended phase space leads to some con...

We discuss our understanding of the equivalence principle in both classical mechanics and quantum mechanics. We show that not only does the equivalence principle hold for the trajectories of quantum particles in a background gravitational field, but also that it is only because of this that the equivalence principle is even to be expected to hold for classical particles at all.

After a long technical and consequently philosophical disgression about the necessity of the construction presented in this book, a logically consistent and precise theory of quantum gravity is presented. The construction of this theory goes in several steps; at first we take a fairly conservative point of view and stumble upon some technical difficulties. Consequently, we investigate a new mathematical implication of an old idea to solve these problems; the latter suggest ho...

This document contains a description of physics entirely based on a geometric presentation: all of the theory is described giving only a pseudo-riemannian manifold (M, g) of dimension n > 5 for which the g tensor is, in studied domains, almost everywhere of signature (-, -, +, ..., +). No object is added to this space-time, no general principle is supposed. The properties we impose to some domains of (M, g) are only simple geometric constraints, essentially based on the conce...