The universe as a quantum gravity condensate.

          @misc{ scivideos_PIRSA:16110048,
            doi = {10.48660/16110048},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/16110048},
            author = {Oriti, Daniele},
            keywords = {Quantum Gravity},
            language = {en},
            title = {The universe as a quantum gravity condensate.},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics},
            year = {2016},
            month = {nov},
            note = {PIRSA:16110048 see, \url{https://scivideos.org/pirsa/16110048}}
          }
          

Abstract

I describe how, within the group field theory (GFT) formalism for quantum gravity, we can: 

 

1) provide a candidate description of the quantum building blocks of spacetime, bringing together ideas and mathematical structures from other quantum gravity formalisms;

 

2) apply powerful tools from quantum field theory, like the (perturbative and non-perturbative) renormalization group, to establish the quantum consistency of given GFT models and to study their continuum limit and phase structure;

 

3) extract, from the full theory, an effective cosmological dynamics for the universe described as a quantum condensate of GFT building blocks; in the simplest approximation, this dynamics reduces to the Friedmann equations at large scales but replaces the classical big bang singularity with a quantum bounce.