arXiv subjects

Etera R. Livine

Publications and source records attributed to Etera R. Livine.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

Frontiers of Quantum Gravity: shared challenges, converging directions

Understanding the quantum nature of spacetime and gravity remains one of the most ambitious goals of theoretical physics. It promises to provide key new insights into fundamental particle theory, astrophysics, cosmology and the foundations of physics. Despite this common goal, the community of quantum gravity researchers is sometimes seen as divided into sub-communities working on different, mutually exclusive approaches. In practice however, recent years have shown the emergence of common techniques, results and physical ideas arising from different sub-communities, suggesting exciting new prospects for collaboration and interaction between traditionally distinct approaches. In this White Paper we discuss some of the common themes which have seen a growing interest from various directions, and argue that focusing on them will help the quantum gravity community as a whole towards shared objectives.

hep-th↗

arXiv2022

Hidden symmetry of the static response of black holes: Applications to Love numbers

We show that any static linear perturbations around Schwarzschild black holes enjoy a set of conserved charges which forms a centrally extended Schrödinger algebra sh(1) = sl$(2,\mathbb{R}) \ltimes \mathcal{H}$. The central charge is given by the black hole mass, echoing results on black hole entropy from near-horizon diffeomorphism symmetry. The finite symmetry transformations generated by these conserved charges correspond to Galilean and conformal transformations of the static field and of the coordinates. This new structure allows one to discuss the static response of a Schwarzschild black hole in the test field approximation from a symmetry-based approach. First we show that the (horizontal) symmetry protecting the vanishing of the Love numbers recently exhibited by Hui et al, dubbed the HJPSS symmetry, coincides with one of the sl$(2,\mathbb{R})$ generators of the Schrödinger group. Then, it is demonstrated that the HJPSS symmetry is selected thanks to the spontaneous breaking of the full Schrödinger symmetry at the horizon down to a simple abelian sub-group. The latter can be understood as the symmetry protecting the regularity of the test field at the horizon. In the 4-dimensional case, this provides a symmetry protection for the vanishing of the Schwarzschild Love numbers. Our results trivially extend to the Kerr case.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2022

Intertwiner Entanglement Excitation and Holonomy Operator

In the loop quantum gravity framework, spin network states carry entanglement between quantum excitations of the geometry at different space points. This intertwiner entanglement is gauge-invariant and comes from quantum superposition of spins and intertwiners. Bipartite entanglement can be interpreted as a witness of distance, while multipartite entanglement reflects the curvature of the quantum geometry. The present work investigates how the bipartite and multipartite intertwiner entanglement changes under the action of the holonomy operator, which is the basic building block of loop quantum gravity's dynamics. We reveal the relation between entanglement excitation and the dispersion of the holonomy operator. This leads to a new interesting connection between bulk geometry and boundary observables via the dynamics of entanglement.

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arXiv2022

Classical dynamics for Loop Gravity: The 2-vertex model

The study of toy models in loop quantum gravity (LQG), defined as truncations of the full theory, is relevant to both the development of the LQG phenomenology, in cosmology and astrophysics, and the progress towards the resolution of the open issues of the theory, in particular the implementation of the dynamics. Here, we study the dynamics of spin network states of quantum geometry defined on the family of graphs consisting in 2 vertices linked by an arbitrary number of edges, or 2-vertex model in short. A symmetry reduced sector of this model -- to isotropic and homogeneous geometries -- was successfully studied in the past, where interesting cosmological insights were found. We now study the evolution of the classical trajectories for this system in the general case, for arbitrary number of edges with random initial configurations. We use the spinorial formalism and its clear interpretation of spin networks in terms of discrete twisted geometries, with the quantum 3d space made of superpositions of polyhedra glued together by faces of equal area. Remarkably, oscillatory and divergent regimes are found with a universal dependence on the coupling constants of the Hamiltonian and independent of the initial spinors or the number of edges. Furthermore, we explore the evolution of the associated polyhedra as well as their volumes and areas.

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arXiv2021

Symmetries and conformal bridge in Schwarzschild-(A)dS black hole mechanics

We show that the Schwarzschild-(A)dS black hole mechanics possesses a hidden symmetry under the three-dimensional Poincaré group. This symmetry shows up after having gauge-fixed the diffeomorphism invariance in the symmetry-reduced homogeneous Einstein-$Λ$ model and stands as a physical symmetry of the system. It dictates the geometry both in the black hole interior and exterior regions, as well as beyond the cosmological horizon in the Schwarzschild-dS case. It follows that one can associate a set of non-trivial conserved charges to the Schwarzschild-(A)dS black hole which act in each causally disconnected regions. In T-regions, they act on fields living on spacelike hypersurface of constant time, while in the R-region, they act on time-like hypersurface of constant radius. We find that while the expression of the charges depend explicitly on the location of the hypersurface, the charge algebra remains the same at any radius in R-regions (or time in T-regions). Finally, the analysis of the Casimirs of the charge algebra reveals a new solution-generating map. The sl$(2,\mathbb{R})$ Casimir is shown to generate a one-parameter family of deformation of the black hole geometry labelled by the cosmological constant. This gives rise to a new conformal bridge allowing one to continuously deform the Schwarzschild-AdS geometry to the Schwarzschild and the Schwarzschild-dS solutions.

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arXiv2021

The Quantum Gravity Disk: Discrete Current Algebra

We study the quantization of the corner symmetry algebra of 3d gravity, that is the algebra of observables associated with 1d spatial boundaries. In the continuum field theory, at the classical level, this symmetry algebra is given by the central extension of the Poincaré loop algebra. At the quantum level, we construct a discrete current algebra based on a quantum symmetry group given by the Drinfeld double $\mathcal{D}\mathrm{SU}(2)$. Those discrete currents depend on an integer $N$, a discreteness parameter, understood as the number of quanta of geometry on the 1d boundary: low $N$ is the deep quantum regime, while large $N$ should lead back to a continuum picture. We show that this algebra satisfies two fundamental properties. First, it is compatible with the quantum space-time picture given by the Ponzano-Regge state-sum model, which provides discrete path integral amplitudes for 3d quantum gravity. The integer $N$ then counts the flux lines attached to the boundary. Second, we analyse the refinement, coarse-graining and fusion processes as $N$ changes, and we show that the $N\rightarrow\infty$ limit is a classical limit where we recover the Poincaré current algebra. Identifying such a discrete current algebra on quantum boundaries is an important step towards understanding how conformal field theories arise on spatial boundaries in quantized space-times such as in loop quantum gravity.

hep-th↗

arXiv2021

The Ponzano-Regge cylinder and Propagator for 3d quantum gravity

We investigate the propagator of 3d quantum gravity, formulated as a discrete topological path integral. We define it as the Ponzano-Regge amplitude of the solid cylinder swept by a 2d disk evolving in time. Quantum states for a 2d disk live in the tensor products of N spins, where N is the number of holonomy insertions connecting to the disk boundary. We formulate the cylindric amplitude in terms of a transfer matrix and identify its eigen-modes in terms of spin recoupling. We show that the propagator distinguishes the subspaces with different total spin and may select the vanishing total spin sector at late time depending on the chosen cylinder boundary data. We discuss applications to quantum circuits and the possibility of experimental simulations of this 3d quantum gravity propagator.

hep-th↗

arXiv2021

BMS$_3$ Mechanics and the Black Hole Interior

The spacetime in the interior of a black hole can be described by an homogeneous line element, for which the Einstein--Hilbert action reduces to a one-dimensional mechanical model. We have shown in [SciPost Phys. 10, 022 (2021), [2010.07059]] that this model exhibits a symmetry under the $(2+1)$-dimensional Poincaré group. Here we explain how this can be understood as a broken infinite-dimensional BMS$_3$ symmetry. This is done by reinterpreting the action for the model as a geometric action for BMS$_3$, where the configuration space variables are elements of the algebra $\mathfrak{bms}_3$ and the equations of motion transform as coadjoint vectors. The Poincaré subgroup then arises as the stabilizer of the vacuum orbit. This symmetry breaking is analogous to what happens with the Schwarzian action in AdS$_2$ JT gravity, although in the present case there is no direct interpretation in terms of boundary symmetries. This observation, together with the fact that other lower-dimensional gravitational models (such as the BTZ black hole) possess the same broken BMS$_3$ symmetries, provides yet another illustration of the ubiquitous role played by this group.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2021

Hawking radiation by spherically-symmetric static black holes for all spins: II -- Numerical emission rates, analytical limits and new constraints

In the companion paper [Phys. Rev. D 103 (2021) 10, [2101.02951]] we have derived the short-ranged potentials for the Teukolsky equations for massless spins $(0,1/2,1,2)$ in general spherically-symmetric and static metrics. Here we apply these results to numerically compute the Hawking radiation spectra of such particles emitted by black holes (BHs) in three different ansatz: charged BHs, higher-dimensional BHs, and polymerized BHs arising from models of quantum gravity. In order to ensure the robustness of our numerical procedure, we show that it agrees with newly derived analytic formulas for the cross-sections in the high and low energy limits. We show how the short-ranged potentials and precise Hawking radiation rates can be used inside the code $\texttt{BlackHawk}$ to predict future primordial BH evaporation signals for a very wide class of BH solutions, including the promising regular BH solutions derived from loop quantum gravity. In particular, we derive the first Hawking radiation constraints on polymerized BHs from AMEGO. We prove that the mass window $10^{16}-10^{18}\,$g for all dark matter into primordial BHs can be reopened with high values of the polymerization parameter, which encodes the typical scale and strength of quantum gravity corrections.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2021

Hawking radiation by spherically-symmetric static black holes for all spins: I -- Teukolsky equations and potentials

In the context of the dynamics and stability of black holes in modified theories of gravity, we derive the Teukolsky equations for massless fields of all spins in general spherically-symmetric and static metrics. We then compute the short-ranged potentials associated with the radial dynamics of spin 1 and spin 1/2 fields, thereby completing the existing literature on spin 0 and 2. These potentials are crucial for the computation of Hawking radiation and quasi-normal modes emitted by black holes. In addition to the Schwarzschild metric, we apply these results and give the explicit formulas for the radial potentials in the case of charged (Reissner--Nordström) black holes, higher-dimensional black holes, and polymerized black holes arising from loop quantum gravity. These results are in particular relevant and applicable to a large class of regular black hole metrics. The phenomenological applications of these formulas will be the subject of a companion paper.

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arXiv2021

Loop Quantum Gravity's Boundary Maps

In canonical quantum gravity, the presence of spatial boundaries naturally leads to a boundary quantum states, representing quantum boundary conditions for the bulk fields. As a consequence, quantum states of the bulk geometry needs to be upgraded to wave-functions valued in the boundary Hilbert space: the bulk become quantum operator acting on boundary states. We apply this to loop quantum gravity and describe spin networks with 2d boundary as wave-functions mapping bulk holonomies to spin states on the boundary. This sets the bulk-boundary relation in a clear mathematical framework, which allows to define the boundary density matrix induced by a bulk spin network states after tracing out the bulk degrees of freedom. We ask the question of the bulk reconstruction and prove a boundary-to-bulk universal reconstruction procedure, to be understood as a purification of the mixed boundary state into a pure bulk state. We further perform a first investigation in the algebraic structure of induced boundary density matrices and show how correlations between bulk excitations, i.e. quanta of 3d geometry, get reflected into the boundary density matrix.

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arXiv2021

Loop Quantum Gravity Boundary Dynamics and SL(2,C) Gauge Theory

In the context of the quest for a holographic formulation of quantum gravity, we investigate the basic boundary theory structure for loop quantum gravity. In 3+1 space-time dimensions, the boundary theory lives on the 2+1-dimensional time-like boundary and is supposed to describe the time evolution of the edge modes living on the 2-dimensional boundary of space, i.e. the space-time corner. Focusing on "electric" excitations -- quanta of area -- living on the corner, we formulate their dynamics in terms of classical spinor variables and we show that the coupling constants of a polynomial Hamiltonian can be understood as the components of a background boundary 2+1-metric. This leads to a deeper conjecture of a correspondence between boundary Hamiltonian and boundary metric states. We further show that one can reformulate the quanta of area data in terms of a SL(2,C) connection, transporting the spinors on the boundary surface and whose SU(2) component would define "magnetic" excitations (tangential Ashtekar-Barbero connection), thereby opening the door to writing the loop quantum gravity boundary dynamics as a 2+1-dimensional SL(2,C) gauge theory.

hep-th↗

arXiv2021

Symmetries of the Black Hole Interior and Singularity Regularization

We reveal an $\mathfrak{iso}(2,1)$ Poincaré algebra of conserved charges associated with the dynamics of the interior of black holes. The action of these Noether charges integrates to a symmetry of the gravitational system under the Poincaré group ISO$(2,1)$, which allows to describe the evolution of the geometry inside the black hole in terms of geodesics and horocycles of AdS${}_2$. At the Lagrangian level, this symmetry corresponds to Möbius transformations of the proper time together with translations. Remarkably, this is a physical symmetry changing the state of the system, which also naturally forms a subgroup of the much larger $\textrm{BMS}_{3}=\textrm{Diff}(S^1)\ltimes\textrm{Vect}(S^1)$ group, where $S^1$ is the compactified time axis. It is intriguing to discover this structure for the black hole interior, and this hints at a fundamental role of BMS symmetry for black hole physics. The existence of this symmetry provides a powerful criterion to discriminate between different regularization and quantization schemes. Following loop quantum cosmology, we identify a regularized set of variables and Hamiltonian for the black hole interior, which allows to resolve the singularity in a black-to-white hole transition while preserving the Poincaré symmetry on phase space. This unravels new aspects of symmetry for black holes, and opens the way towards a rigorous group quantization of the interior.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2020

The Cosmological Constant from Conformal Transformations: Möbius Invariance and Schwarzian Action

The homogeneous Friedman-Lema\^ıtre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) cosmology of a free scalar field with vanishing cosmological constant was recently shown to be invariant under the one-dimensional conformal group $\textrm{SL}(2,\mathbb{R})$ acting as M{ö}bius transformations on the proper time. Here we generalize this analysis to arbitrary transformations of the proper time, $τ\mapsto \tildeτ=f(τ)$, which are not to be confused with reparametrizations of the time coordinate. First, we show that the FLRW cosmology with a non-vanishing cosmological constant $Λ\ne 0$ is also invariant under a $\textrm{SL}(2,\mathbb{R})$ group of conformal transformations. The associated conformal Noether charges form a $\mathfrak{sl}(2,\mathbb{R})$ Lie algebra which encodes the cosmic evolution. Second, we show that a cosmological constant can be generated from the $Λ=0$ case through particular conformal transformations, realizing a compactification or de-compactification of the proper time depending on the sign of $Λ$. Finally, we propose an extended FLRW cosmological action invariant under the full group $\textrm{Diff}({\cal S}^1)$ of conformal transformations on the proper time, by promoting the cosmological constant to a gauge field for conformal transformations or by modifying the scalar field action to a Schwarzian action. Such a conformally-invariant cosmology leads to a renewed problem of time and to the necessity to re-think inflation in purely time-deparameterized terms.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2020

The Cosmological Spinor

We build upon previous investigation of the one-dimensional conformal symmetry of the Friedman-Lema\^ itre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) cosmology of a free scalar field and make it explicit through a reformulation of the theory at the classical level in terms of a manifestly $\textrm{SL}(2,\mathbb{R})$-invariant action principle. The new tool is a canonical transformation of the cosmological phase space to write it in terms of a spinor, i.e. a pair of complex variables that transform under the fundamental representation of $\textrm{SU}(1,1)\sim\textrm{SL}(2,\mathbb{R})$. The resulting FLRW Hamiltonian constraint is simply quadratic in the spinor and FLRW cosmology is written as a Schrödinger-like action principle. Conformal transformations can then be written as proper-time dependent $\textrm{SL}(2,\mathbb{R})$ transformations. We conclude with possible generalizations of FLRW to arbitrary quadratic Hamiltonian and discuss the interpretation of the spinor as a gravitationally-dressed matter field or matter-dressed geometry observable.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2020

Conformal structure of FLRW Cosmology: Spinorial representation and the so(3,2) algebra of observables

It was recently shown that the homogeneous and isotropic cosmology of a massless scalar field coupled to general relativity exhibits a new hidden conformal invariance under Mobius transformation of the proper time, additionally to the invariance under time-reparamterization. The resulting Noether charges form a $sl(2,\mathbb{R})$ Lie algebra, which encapsulates the whole kinematics and dynamics of the geometry. This allows to map FLRW cosmology onto conformal mechanics and formulate quantum cosmology in $\text{CFT}_1$ terms. Here, we show that this conformal structure is embedded in a larger $so(3,2)$ algebra of observables, which allows to present all the Dirac observables for the whole gravity plus matter sectors in a unified picture. Not only this allows one to quantize the system and its whole algebra of observables as a single irreducible representation of $so(3,2)$, but this also gives access to a scalar field operator $\hatϕ$ opening the door to the inclusion of non-trivial potentials for the scalar field. As such, this extended conformal structure might allow to perform a group quantization of inflationary cosmological backgrounds.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2020

Kinematical Gravitational Charge Algebra

When formulated in terms of connection and coframes, and in the time gauge, the phase space of general relativity consists of a pair of conjugate fields: the flux 2-form and the Ashtekar connection. On this phase-space, one has to impose the Gauss constraints, the vector, and scalar Hamiltonian constraints. These are respectively generating local SU(2) gauge transformations, spatial diffeomorphisms, and time diffeomorphisms. We write the Gauss and space diffeomorphism constraints as conservation laws for a set of boundary charges, representing spin and momenta, respectively. We prove that these kinematical charges generate a local Poincaré ISU(2) symmetry algebra. This gives strong support to the recent proposal of Poincaré charge networks as a new realm for discretized general relativity [Classical Quantum Gravity 36, 195014 (2019)].

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arXiv2019

Non-Perturbative 3D Quantum Gravity: Quantum Boundary States and Exact Partition Function

We push forward the investigation of holographic dualities in 3D quantum gravity formulated as a topological quantum field theory, studying the correspondence between boundary and bulk structures. Working with the Ponzano-Regge topological state-sum model defining an exact discretization of 3d quantum gravity, we analyze how the partition function for a solid twisted torus depends on the boundary quantum state. This configuration is relevant to the AdS${}_{3}$/CFT${}_{2}$ correspondence. We introduce boundary spin network states with coherent superposition of spins on a square lattice on the boundary surface. This allows for the first exact analytical calculation of Ponzano-Regge amplitudes with extended 2D boundary (beyond the single tetrahedron). We get a regularized finite truncation of the BMS character formula obtained from the one-loop perturbative quantization of 3D gravity. This hints towards the existence of an underlying symmetry and the integrability of the theory for finite boundary at the quantum level for coherent boundary spin network states.

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