Loop quantum cosmology of Bianchi I models

By Abhay Ashtekar, E. Wilson-Ewing. 2009

252 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The 'improved dynamics' of loop quantum cosmology is extended to include anisotropies of the Bianchi I model. As in the isotropic case, a massless scalar field serves as a relational time parameter. However, the extension is non-trivial because one has to face several conceptual subtleties as well as technical difficulties. These include: a better understanding of the relation between loop quantum gravity (LQG) and loop quantum cosmology (LQC)/ handling novel features associated with the non-local field strength operator in presence of anisotropies/ and finding dynamical variables that make the action of the Hamiltonian constraint manageable. Our analysis provides a conceptually complete description that overcomes limitations of earlier works. We again find that the big bang singularity is resolved by quantum geometry effects but, because of the presence of Weyl curvature, Planck scale physics is now much richer than in the isotropic case. Since the Bianchi I models play a key role in the Belinskii, Khalatnikov, Lifshitz (BKL) conjecture on the nature of generic space-like singularities in general relativity, the quantum dynamics of Bianchi I cosmologies is likely to provide considerable intuition about the fate of generic space-like singularities in quantum gravity. Finally, we show that the quantum dynamics of Bianchi I cosmologies projects down \emph{exactly} to that of the Friedmann model. This opens a new avenue to relate more complicated models to simpler ones, thereby providing a new tool to relate the quantum dynamics of LQG to that of LQC.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/03e6aef1a7de3077d26a10e7a28c9ac4f5dcea88

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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

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Citations in the corpus

Emergent Friedmann dynamics with a quantum bounce from quantum gravity condensates (2016, background): “See also [45, 46, 56] for further arguments concerning the potential importance for allowing for the number of quanta to change in the cosmological sector of LQG.”
Loop quantum cosmology: an overview (2008, methodology): “However, it was later realized [ 41 ,65] that, if one uses a semi-heuristic correspondence between LQGandLQCstates,LQGeigenstateswiththeseeigenvalueswillnotappearinquantum geometries needed to represent homogeneous classical metrics.”