Living Reviews in Relativity (Jan 1998)
Discrete Approaches to Quantum Gravity in Four Dimensions
Abstract
The construction of a consistent theory of quantum gravity is a problem in theoretical physics that has so far defied all attempts at resolution. One ansatz to try to obtain a non-trivial quantum theory proceeds via a discretization of space-time and the Einstein action. I review here three major areas of research: gauge-theoretic approaches, both in a path-integral and a Hamiltonian formulation; quantum Regge calculus; and the method of dynamical triangulations, confining attention to work that is strictly four-dimensional, strictly discrete, and strictly quantum in nature.
