Loop Quantum Cosmology: A brief review

Abstract

In the last decade, progress on quantization of homogeneous cosmological spacetimes using techniques of loop quantum gravity has led to insights on various fundamental questions and has opened new avenues to explore Planck scale physics. These include the problem of singularities and their possible generic resolution, constructing viable non-singular models of the very early universe, and bridging quantum gravity with cosmological observations. These results, which emerge from an interplay of sophisticated analytical and numerical techniques, has also led to valuable hints on loop quantization of black hole and inhomogeneous spacetimes. In this review, we provide a summary of this progress while focusing on concrete examples of the quantization procedure and phenomenology of cosmological perturbations.

47 pages, 3 figures. To appear as a chapter contribution for a volume edited by A. Ashtekar and J. Pullin, to be published in the World Scientific series "100 Years of General Relativity."

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Effective Dynamics from Coherent State Path Integral of Full Loop Quantum Gravity
• Quantization of time and the big bang via scale-invariant loop gravity
• Bianchi I effective dynamics in Quantum Reduced Loop Gravity
• Solvable Loop Quantum Cosmology: domain of the volume observable and semiclassical states
• Conformal structure of FLRW Cosmology: Spinorial representation and the so(3,2) algebra of observables
• Cosmological dynamics in spin-foam loop quantum cosmology: challenges and prospects