Quantum Gravity
Nottingham Quantum Gravity Group is one of the leading groups in the field of (non-string) quantum gravity.
Research Areas
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Analogue models of quantum gravity
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Averaging methods in constrained quantisation
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Modified gravity
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Non-commutative geometry
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Quantum black holes
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Quantum gravity in 2+1 spacetime dimensions
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Spin foam models of quantum gravity
Group Activities
The group has close links with the Nottingham Particle Theory Group and a joint “Gravity and Particles” seminar series is run by the two groups. The Quantum Gravity Group also hosts a separate series of quantum gravity seminars on Wednesdays.
Members have been involved in the organisation of international conferences and workshops on quantum gravity and the group is represented on the Advisory Panel of Classical and Quantum Gravity the most prominent international journal publishing articles in classical relativity and all areas of quantum gravity. Research of the group has been supported by grants from the Royal Society, EPSRC and STFC as well as two current ERC Starting Grants for Kirill Krasnov and Thomas Sotiriou. Silke Weinfurtner holds a current Royal Society University Research Fellowship.
The group also runs co-run the MSc programme in Gravity, Particles and Fields jointly with the Particle Theory group.
Group Members
Staff:
John Barrett
Professor Barrett is a world-leading authority in Quantum Gravity, and led the European network in Quantum Geometry and Quantum Gravity. In addition, he has interests in quantum topology, geometry of the standard model and knot theory.
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Kirill Krasnov
Professor Krasnov is currently working on diffeomorphism invariant gauge theories for his ERC Starting Grant. He also has interests in quantum gravity in 2+1 dimensions (and associated aspects of Teichmueller theory) as well as spin-foam models of quantum gravity.
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Jorma Louko
Dr Louko has interests in quantum gravity and in quantum field theory in curved spacetimes. A central theme is quantum mechanics of black holes, including observable low energy consequences via Hawking radiation as well as fundamental dynamical description within theories of quantised spacetime. In particular, some current topics of interest include:
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Hawking-Unruh effect on eternal black holes that have unusual topology beyond the horizons
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Acceleration effects in quantum field theory, with applications to quantum information
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Group averaging methods in quantisation of constrained systems
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Thomas Sotiriou
Dr Sotiriou is undertaking research for his ERC Starting Grant 'Challenging General Relativity' which aims to better understand gravity and includes looking at: quantum gravity candidates and their phenomenology, extensions of general relativity to try and explain various phenomena, and and exploration into how any deviations from the fundamental principles of general relativity may affect the physics community.
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Silke Weinfurtner
Dr Weinfurtner has recently been awarded a five year fellowship by the Royal Society to work on designing experimental set-ups to model quantum gravity problems, e.g. representation of a black hole by a draining fluid. These and related ideas form an area dubbed 'analogue quantum gravity' which is expected to shed light on phenomena it would be impossible to fully recreate in a laboratory setting.
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Postdocs:
Visitors:
The group hosts several visitors each year including most recently Sanved Kolekar (India), Yuri Shtanov (Ukraine) and Richard Woodard (USA).