Tetrade Spin Foam Model

Abstract

We propose a spin foam model of four-dimensional quantum gravity which is based on the integration of the tetrads in the path integral for the Palatini action of General Relativity. In the Euclidian gravity case we show that the model can be understood as a modification of the Barrett-Crane spin foam model. Fermionic matter can be coupled by using the path integral with sources for the tetrads and the spin connection, and the corresponding state sum is based on a spin foam where both the edges and the faces are colored independently with the irreducible representations of the spacetime rotations group.

13 pages