Quantum Reference Frames for Quantum Gravity

This seminar is the first part of a two-part mini-seminar series organized by the Quantum Gravity Gatherings study group.

It is intended to have a more lecture-style format, with an extended duration of up to two hours.
This will allow the speaker sufficient time to introduce the framework in a clear and pedagogical manner, while also leaving ample room for questions and discussion with the audience.

Title:
Quantum Reference Frames for Quantum Gravity

Abstract:
Internal quantum reference frames provide a general framework for handling symmetries in quantum theory, with applications ranging from quantum gravity and gauge theories to quantum information and foundational physics. I will first introduce the formalism in simple mechanical systems, before turning to classical gravity. There, I will motivate the need for internal, dynamical frames in background-independent theories to define relationally local gauge-invariant observables, and show how this framework leads to a relational update of general covariance: frame covariance.

I will then move to non-perturbative quantum gravity, showing how quantum reference frames can be used to define a manifestly gauge-invariant relational path integral, which is also invariant under transformations between quantum reference frames. It therefore provides a perspective-neutral description of quantum gravitational physics. I will also discuss the associated relational effective actions. Although effective actions are, in general, not frame-covariant off shell, the on-shell physics they encode is.

Finally, I will present several physical consequences of this framework, including the fuzziness of frame-changed local correlators, the non-trivial interplay between quantum-reference-frame transformations and time evolution, and the frame-dependence properties of ground sectors and Hartle-Hawking prescriptions. I will conclude by outlining future directions, with particular emphasis on a relational notion of the renormalization group flow.