Embedding loop quantum cosmology without piecewise linearity

Abstract

An important goal is to understand better the relation between full loop quantum gravity (LQG) and the simplified, reduced theory known as loop quantum cosmology (LQC), directly at the quantum level. Such a firmer understanding would increase confidence in the reduced theory as a tool for formulating predictions of the full theory, as well as permitting lessons from the reduced theory to guide further development in the full theory. This paper constructs an embedding of the usual state space of LQC into that of standard LQG, that is, LQG based on piecewise analytic paths. The embedding is well defined even prior to solving the diffeomorphism constraint, at no point is a graph fixed and at no point is the piecewise linear category used. This motivates for the first time a definition of operators in LQC corresponding to holonomies along non-piecewise linear paths, without changing the usual kinematics of LQC in any way. The new embedding intertwines all operators corresponding to such holonomies, and all elements in its image satisfy an operator equation which classically implies homogeneity and isotropy. The construction is made possible by a recent result proven by Fleischhack.Communicated by P Singh