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Several postings about solvable LQC--and other news
AFAICS cosmology is the main prospective proving ground for quantum gravity---cosmology and astrophysical observation generally.
A LQG explanation for the dark energy effect (accelerating expansion as the cumulative result of quantum corrections) has been proposed. Likewise a various mechanisms to account for inflation have come up in Loop and other QG. There has been a lot of discussion of gammaray observations (MAGIC, GLAST...) probing QG and testing various models.
Various LQG ways of resolving BB and BH singularities are being explored and have sparked debate. Observable effects (on GRBs, on the universe's largescale structure) have been suggested, to look for as ways of testing the various models that replace classical singularities.
The upshot is that you can't really separate LQG from either its phenomenology (which so far is mostly in astronomy though some might come up in LHC) or its application to cosmology and the resolution of classical singularties.
It's all one package.
When we look at the whole cluster of research activity certain salient things stand out
and help define what is going on at present
1. Smolin et al's ball and tube method for defining a quantum state of geometry and matter (Yidun W., Louis K, Sundance BT, Jonathan H are among those currently working on this). More info: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=190053
2. Rovelli et al's Marseille new vertex. Defines a new LQG spinfoam model. Surprising agreement with LQG area spectrum, and earlier LQG in general, signs of correct semiclassical limit. Most people involved with this are in Rovelli's group at Marseille, but closely related variants are being worked on at several other places. More info: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=194651
3. Ashtekar et al's solvable LQC model (Corichi, Pawlowski, Singh are among those working on this.)
I guess you could say that the big LQG tent contains a three-ring circus (Perimeter ball-and-tube, Marseille new vertex, Penn State solvable LQC.
That would make Martin Reuter's asymptotic safety a sideshow outside the main tent.
It gets a bit tricky at times trying to watch all the action.
==============
Anyway here's an update on #3 in the above list.
There's a series of papers coming out. Two have already posted on arxiv, two are in preparation but I can say a bit about them, and there may be others.
Corichi uses the acronym sLQC for solvable LQC model---which might catch on. It sounds like "slick", in case that helps you remember it.
The point about sLQC is that it is simplified, so it leaves open the question of whether the results would be generic for the full theory----and robustly carry over to messier, more realistic cosmology. However with that reservation, sLQC does seem to allow inference of conditions before the big bang.
AFAICS cosmology is the main prospective proving ground for quantum gravity---cosmology and astrophysical observation generally.
A LQG explanation for the dark energy effect (accelerating expansion as the cumulative result of quantum corrections) has been proposed. Likewise a various mechanisms to account for inflation have come up in Loop and other QG. There has been a lot of discussion of gammaray observations (MAGIC, GLAST...) probing QG and testing various models.
Various LQG ways of resolving BB and BH singularities are being explored and have sparked debate. Observable effects (on GRBs, on the universe's largescale structure) have been suggested, to look for as ways of testing the various models that replace classical singularities.
The upshot is that you can't really separate LQG from either its phenomenology (which so far is mostly in astronomy though some might come up in LHC) or its application to cosmology and the resolution of classical singularties.
It's all one package.
When we look at the whole cluster of research activity certain salient things stand out
and help define what is going on at present
1. Smolin et al's ball and tube method for defining a quantum state of geometry and matter (Yidun W., Louis K, Sundance BT, Jonathan H are among those currently working on this). More info: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=190053
2. Rovelli et al's Marseille new vertex. Defines a new LQG spinfoam model. Surprising agreement with LQG area spectrum, and earlier LQG in general, signs of correct semiclassical limit. Most people involved with this are in Rovelli's group at Marseille, but closely related variants are being worked on at several other places. More info: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=194651
3. Ashtekar et al's solvable LQC model (Corichi, Pawlowski, Singh are among those working on this.)
I guess you could say that the big LQG tent contains a three-ring circus (Perimeter ball-and-tube, Marseille new vertex, Penn State solvable LQC.
That would make Martin Reuter's asymptotic safety a sideshow outside the main tent.
It gets a bit tricky at times trying to watch all the action.
==============
Anyway here's an update on #3 in the above list.
There's a series of papers coming out. Two have already posted on arxiv, two are in preparation but I can say a bit about them, and there may be others.
Corichi uses the acronym sLQC for solvable LQC model---which might catch on. It sounds like "slick", in case that helps you remember it.
The point about sLQC is that it is simplified, so it leaves open the question of whether the results would be generic for the full theory----and robustly carry over to messier, more realistic cosmology. However with that reservation, sLQC does seem to allow inference of conditions before the big bang.
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