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Full-Text Articles in Cosmology, Relativity, and Gravity
Semiclassical Partition Functions For Gravity With Cosmic Strings, Christopher L. Duston
Semiclassical Partition Functions For Gravity With Cosmic Strings, Christopher L. Duston
Physics Faculty Publications
In this paper we describe an approach to construct semiclassical partition functions in gravity which are complete in the sense that they contain a complete description of the differentiable structures of the underlying 4-manifold. In addition, we find our construction naturally includes cosmic strings. We prove that the mass density of these strings uniquely specifies the topology of the leaves of a dimension 2 foliation, and conjecture that spacetime topology emerges as a result of the symmetry breaking of the fundamental fields. We discuss some possible applications of the partition functions in the fields of both quantum gravity and topological …
Exotic Smoothness In Four Dimensions And Euclidean Quantum Gravity, Christopher L. Duston
Exotic Smoothness In Four Dimensions And Euclidean Quantum Gravity, Christopher L. Duston
Physics Faculty Publications
In this paper we calculate the effect of the inclusion of exotic smooth structures on typical observables in Euclidean quantum gravity. We do this in the semiclassical regime for several gravitational free-field actions and find that the results are similar, independent of the particular action that is chosen. These are the first results of their kind in dimension four, which we extend to include one-loop contributions as well. We find these topological features can have physically significant results without the need for additional exotic physics.