Is quantum gravity a Chern-Simons theory?

We propose a model of quantum gravity in arbitrary dimensions defined in terms of the Batalin Vilkovisky (BV) quantization of a supersymmetric, infinite dimensional matrix model. This gives an Alexandrov-Kontsevich-Schwarz-Zaboronsky (AKSZ)-type Chern-Simons theory with gauge algebra the space of observables of a quantum mechanical Hilbert space $\mathcal{H}$. The model is motivated by previous attempts to formulate gravity in terms of noncommutative, phase space, field theories as well as the Fefferman-Graham (FG) curved analog of Dirac spaces for conformally invariant wave equations. The field equations are flat connection conditions amounting to zero curvature and parallel conditions on operators acting on $\mathcal{H}$. This matrix-type model may give a better defined setting for a quantum gravity path integral. We demonstrate that its underlying physics is a summation over Hamiltonians labeled by a conformal class of metrics and thus a sum over causal structures. This gives in turn a model summing over fluctuating metrics plus a tower of additional modes—we speculate that these could yield improved UV behavior.

Figure 1

The flat model for a conformal manifold. The $n$-sphere with its canonical conformal class of metrics is given by the space of lightlike rays $Q$ in ${\mathbb{R}}^{n+1,1}$.