Strings meet Loops via AdS/CFT (Helsinki Workshop on Quantum Gravity 2016)

This rerecorded talk was originally given at the Helsinki Workshop on Quantum Gravity on June 2, 2016. I was invited by the organisers to talk about a recent paper, which was intended as an invitation for people to become interested in the subject, as opposed to giving concrete and detailed results.

In particular, I am very much looking forward to discussions about this topic and criticism of the ideas, in particular from experts in string theory. In the long run, much can be gained in my point of view from intensifying the exchange between researchers in loop quantum gravity and string theory.

In this context, it is certainly worth pointing out a recent article by Sabine Hossenfelder for Quanta Magazine, as well as a blogpost of hers on the paper I wrote.

The algebra of observables in Gaußian normal space-(time) coordinates

This rerecorded talk was originally given at the spring meeting of the German Physical Society on February 29, 2016. It is based on this paper, where the algebra of a set of gravity observables constructed using a coordinate system specified by geodesics is computed. My interest in this question, next to general considerations in quantum gravity, comes from the AdS/CFT correspondence, where this construction has been used in the construction of the bulk / boundary dictionary. I plan to comment a little more on the content of the paper in the near future, highlighting some in my point of view important conceptual conclusions on the structure of general relativistic observable algebras.

Black hole entropy from loop quantum gravity: Generalized theories and higher dimensions (ILQGS)

Talk given at the International Loop Quantum Gravity Seminar (ILQGS) on October 1, 2013.

Slides (PDF) are available at: http://relativity.phys.lsu.edu/ilqgs/

Based on the original research papers
http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.2679
http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.3025
http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.5029

Addendum:
- More discussion on the quantisation and the relation to entanglement entropy is discussed in http://arxiv.org/abs/1402.1038

Symmetry reductions in loop quantum gravity based on classical gauge fixings (ILQGS)

Talk given at the International Loop Quantum Gravity Seminar (ILQGS) on December 8, 2015.

Slides (PDF) are available at: http://relativity.phys.lsu.edu/ilqgs/

Based on the original research papers
http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.5608
http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.5609
http://arxiv.org/abs/1512.00221
http://arxiv.org/abs/1512.00713

Addendum:
- On slide 10, an additional reference to http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0211012 should be added.