Can anyone Recommend a good quantum gravity textbook?

[Maurice7510]

I'm currently doing my thesis in QG and there's a distinct gap between where QFT and GR left off and QG begins, and as I'm sure most of you know, in a thesis you're sort of just thrown right into the deep end. As such, I was hoping someone could recommend a decent textbook that gives a solid introduction to topics in QG at a graduate level, ie. I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty with the math. I should note, the QG I'm looking at is not string theory, and while I realize ST is a quantum theory of gravity, it is not the one I'm looking at. So books like Polchinski and GSW may not be totally helpful unless they have non string related sections.

Thanks in advance

 

[Demystifier]

There are many inequivalent approaches to quantum gravity. If you don't know which approach do you need, you can start with C. Kiefer, Quantum Gravity, which reviews most of the existing approaches.

 

[Spinnor]

C. Kiefer, Quantum Gravity

It looks like a Google search "C. Kiefer, Quantum Gravity" comes up with several links,

https://www.google.com/search?q=C.+...ty&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

[Demystifier]

It looks like a Google search "C. Kiefer, Quantum Gravity" comes up with several links,

https://www.google.com/search?q=C.+Kiefer,+Quantum+Gravity&oq=C.+Kiefer,+Quantum+Gravity&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

So? A google search for almost anything comes up with "several" links. For instance, a google search for
"It looks like a Google search "C. Kiefer, Quantum Gravity" comes up with several links"
comes up with "several" links itself.
https://www.google.hr/search?source....0...0...1c..64.psy-ab..0.0.0...0.hx9utWM9LtA

 

[haushofer]

Maybe you should give us your thesis topic.

 

[Spinnor]

So?

It looked like there were two different articles by him with that title, I wondered if you had a preference between the two.

 

[Demystifier]

It looked like there were two different articles by him with that title, I wondered if you had a preference between the two.

Kiefer wrote only one book with that title, but there are two slightly different editions. Perhaps you found a shorter paper, in addition to the book?

 

[Spinnor]

Kiefer wrote only one book with that title, but there are two slightly different editions. Perhaps you found a shorter paper, in addition to the book?

There is a short 15 page review, page 1, cited by 216,

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Louis_Kauffman/publication/226004935_Differential_Geometry_in_Non-Commutative_Worlds/links/55f3574208ae63926cf24656.pdf#page=17

And 21 pages with the same title and more pictures!,

https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0508120.pdf

This is what I guess you recommended,

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/quantum-gravity-9780199585205?cc=us&lang=en&

Quantum Gravity
Third Edition
Claus Kiefer
International Series of Monographs on Physics

• Accessible introduction to the main approaches to quantum gravity (without bias to a particular approach)
• Suitable starting point for any research in quantum gravity
• Presents a combination of mathematical and conceptual issues
• Assists the reader in recognizing connections between the various approaches
• Technically precise and explicit
• Contains new chapters or sections on quantum gravity phenomenology, Horava-Lifshitz quantum gravity, analogue gravity, the holographic principle, affine quantum gravity, and other topics.
• Presents updates on loop quantum cosmology, the LTB model, asymptotic safety, various discrete approaches, and other topics.
• Contains pedagogical extensions throughout the text.

Good afternoon!

 

[Urs Schreiber]

From nLab:quantum gravity:

General discussion includes

• Steve Carlip,
  "Quantum Gravity: a Progress Report"
  (arXiv:gr-qc/0108040)
• Richard Woodard,
  "How Far Are We from the Quantum Theory of Gravity?"
  (arXiv:0907.4238)
• Hermann Nicolai,
  "Quantum Gravity: the view from particle physics"
  (arXiv:1301.5481)
• Steven Carlip, Dah-Wei Chiou, Wei-Tou Ni, Richard Woodard,
  "Quantum Gravity: A Brief History of Ideas and Some Prospects",
  Int. J. Mod. Phys. D
  (arXiv:1507.08194)
• Edward Witten,
  "Quantum Gravity",
  Solomon Lefschetz Memorial Lecture Series, November 2011
  (video)

As a perturbative quantum field theory, quantum gravity exists (usually thought of as an effective quantum field theory):

• Richard Feynman,
  "Quantum theory of gravitation",
  Acta Phys.Polon. 24 (1963) 697-722
  (spire:9148)
  
• Martinus Veltman,
  "Quantum theory of Gravitation",
  In Les Houches 1975,
  Proceedings, Methods In Field Theory, (Amsterdam 1976) 265-327
  (pdf, spire)
• John F. Donoghue,
  "Introduction to the Effective Field Theory Description of Gravity"
  (arXiv:gr-qc/9512024)
• Zvi Bern,
  "Perturbative Quantum Gravity and its Relation to Gauge Theory",
  Living Rev Relativ. 2002; 5(1): 5.
  (arXiv:gr-qc/0206071, doi:10.12942/lrr-2002-5)

A brief survey of the relevant mathematical issues with more pointers to the literature is in

• Igor Khavkine,
  "Gravity: an exercise in quantization",
  talk at Quantum Gravity in Perspective, Munich, 31 May 2013
  (http://www.science.unitn.it/~khavkine/khavkine-munich.pdf, video)

Corrections at 1-loop from quantum gravity to the anomalous magnetic moment of the leptons are discussed in

• F. A. Berends, R. Gastmans,
  "Quantum gravity and the electron and muon anomalous magnetic moment",
  Phys. Lett. B55 Issue 3 Feb 1975 311-312
  (https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/doi.org/10.1016/0370-2693(75)90608-5)

The rigorous construction via [URL='https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/causal-perturbation-theory/']causal perturbation theory[/URL] of quantum gravity as a [URL='https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/paqft-idea-references/']perturbative quantum field theory[/URL] around Minkowski spacetime (as in the PhysicsInsights series on QFT) is spelled out in

• Günter Scharf, "Quantum Gauge Theories -- A True Ghost Story", Wiley 2001

The generalization of this to perturbation about curved spacetimes is discussed via locally covariant perturbative algebraic quantum field theory in

• Romeo Brunetti, Klaus Fredenhagen, Katarzyna Rejzner,
  "Quantum gravity from the point of view of locally covariant quantum field theory",
  Communications in Mathematical Physics August 2016, Volume 345, Issue 3, pp 741–779
  (arXiv:1306.1058)

and with applications to cosmology in

• Romeo Brunetti, Klaus Fredenhagen, Thomas-Paul Hack, Nicola Pinamonti, Katarzyna Rejzner,
  "Cosmological perturbation theory and quantum gravity",
  Journal of High Energy Physics August 2016:32
  (arXiv:1605.02573)

 

[Maurice7510]

Thanks a lot! I was looking up the Kiefer book when I happened to come across one by Percacci, the latter of which covers a ton of extremely relevant topics from our research, so this is ideal for us

 

[Demystifier]

... when I happened to come across one by Percacci, the latter of which covers a ton of extremely relevant topics from our research, so this is ideal for us

Then perhaps Buchbinder et al may also be relevant for you
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0750301228/?tag=pfamazon01-20