We construct a second quantized reformulation of canonical loop quantum gravity (LQG) at both kinematical and dynamical level, in terms of a Fock space of spin networks, and show in full generality that it leads directly to the group field theory (GFT) formalism. In particular, we show the correspondence between canonical LQG dynamics and GFT dynamics leading to a specific GFT model from any definition of quantum canonical dynamics of spin networks. We exemplify the correspondence of dynamics in the specific example of 3d quantum gravity. The correspondence between canonical LQG and covariant spin foam models is obtained via the GFT definition of the latter.

We give a general procedure, in the group field theory (GFT) formalism for quantum gravity, for constructing states that describe macroscopic, spatially homogeneous universes. These states are close to coherent (condensate) states used in the description of Bose-Einstein condensates. The condition on such states to be (approximate) solutions to the quantum equations of motion of GFT is used to extract an effective dynamics for homogeneous cosmologies directly from the underlying quantum theory. The resulting description in general gives nonlinear and nonlocal equations for the ‘condensate wavefunction’ which are analogous to the Gross-Pitaevskii equation in Bose-Einstein condensates. We show the general form of the effective equations for current quantum gravity models, as well as some concrete examples. We identify conditions under which the dynamics becomes linear, admitting an interpretation as a quantum-cosmological Wheeler-DeWitt equation, and give its semiclassical (WKB) approximation in the case of a kinetic term that includes a Laplace-Beltrami operator. For isotropic states, this approximation reproduces the classical Friedmann equation in vacuum with positive spatial curvature. We show how the formalism can be consistently extended from Riemannian signature to Lorentzian signature models, and discuss the addition of matter fields, obtaining the correct coupling of a massless scalar in the Friedmann equation from the most natural extension of the GFT action. We also outline the procedure for extending our condensate states to include cosmological perturbations. Our results form the basis of a general programme for extracting effective cosmological dynamics directly from a microscopic non-perturbative theory of quantum gravity.

We identify a class of condensate states in the group field theory (GFT) formulation of quantum gravity that can be interpreted as macroscopic homogeneous spatial geometries. We then extract the dynamics of such condensate states directly from the fundamental quantum GFT dynamics, following the procedure used in ordinary quantum fluids. The effective dynamics is a nonlinear and nonlocal extension of quantum cosmology. We also show that any GFT model with a kinetic term of Laplacian type gives rise, in a semiclassical (WKB) approximation and in the isotropic case, to a modified Friedmann equation. This is the first concrete, general procedure for extracting an effective cosmological dynamics directly from a fundamental theory of quantum geometry.

We study the effective cosmological dynamics, emerging as the hydrodynamics of simple condensate states, of a group field theory (GFT) model for quantum gravity coupled to a massless scalar field and reduced to its isotropic sector. The quantum equations of motion for these GFT condensate states are given in relational terms with respect to the scalar field, from which effective dynamics for spatially flat, homogeneous and isotropic space–times can be extracted. The result is a generalisation of the Friedmann equations, including quantum gravity modifications, in a specific regime of the theory corresponding to a Gross–Pitaevskii approximation where interactions are subdominant. The classical Friedmann equations of general relativity are recovered in a suitable semi-classical limit for some range of parameters of the microscopic dynamics. An important result is that the quantum geometries associated with these GFT condensate states are non-singular: a bounce generically occurs in the Planck regime. For some choices of condensate states, these modified Friedmann equations are very similar to those of loop quantum cosmology.

This is an introduction to spin foam models for non-perturbative quantum gravity, an approach that lies at the point of convergence of many different research areas, including loop quantum gravity, topological quantum field theories, path integral quantum gravity, lattice field theory, matrix models, category theory and statistical mechanics. We describe the general formalism and ideas of spin foam models, the picture of quantum geometry emerging from them, and give a review of the results obtained so far, in both the Euclidean and Lorentzian cases. We focus in particular on the Barrett-Crane model for four-dimensional quantum gravity.