Particles as loops (new Freidel paper)

1. Jul 5, 2006

marcus

I expect this to turn out to be an important non-string QG paper this year.

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0607014
Particles as Wilson lines of gravitational field
L. Freidel, J. Kowalski--Glikman, A. Starodubtsev
19 pages

"Since the work of Mac-Dowell-Mansouri it is well known that gravity can be written as a gauge theory for the de Sitter group. In this paper we consider the coupling of this theory to the simplest gauge invariant observables that is, Wilson lines. The dynamics of these Wilson lines is shown to reproduce exactly the dynamics of relativistic particles coupled to gravity, the gauge charges carried by Wilson lines being the mass and spin of the particles. Insertion of Wilson lines breaks in a controlled manner the diffeomorphism symmetry of the theory and the gauge degree of freedom are transmuted to particles degree of freedom."

It investigates a way that matter could arise from the geometry of spacetime-----particles can arise as "defects" in the gravitational field.
I am told Freidel has yet another paper with Artem Staro in the works, and also one with Aristide Baratin.

John Baez has been discussing some anticipated results in connection with some papers in the works by himself and also by Freidel and others.

2. Jul 6, 2006

Farsight

Thanks marcus. I'll read that with interest.

3. Jul 6, 2006

marcus

you are welcome, Farsight!

I found a nice quote on page 6:

"This realizes explicitly in four dimension the idea that matter (relativistic particles) can arise as a ... topological gravitational defect. This strategy, well known in three dimensions, gives a new perspective where matter and gravity are geometrically unified... "

Freidel earlier got the analogous result in 3D spacetime. there is a paper by Freidel and Livine about this. (you may have seen it)
Got discussed quite a bit---and the big question was, can the result be extended to 4D, the important case.

Here are some earlier papers mostly about 3D
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0512113
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0604016
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0502106

Last edited: Jul 6, 2006