1997/04/24 by Merced Montesinos, Merced Montesinos-Velasquez, Hugo A. Morales-Tecotl +2 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dirac fermion #Fermion #Fermion doubling #Hamiltonian (control theory) #Loop quantum gravity #MAJORANA #Mass gap #Mass generation #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Physics #Planck length #Planck scale #Quantum #Quantum gravity #Quantum mechanics #Theoretical physics #gr-qc #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0264-9381/14/7/002
published in Classical and Quantum Gravity 14(7), L135-L142 (IOP Publishing) · 15 pages, Latex file, no figures. To be published in Classical and Quantum Gravity
arxiv created 1997/04/24 · openalex publication_date 1997/07/01 · arxiv updated 2010/04/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
An essential step towards the identification of a fermion mass generation mechanism at the Planck scale is to analyse massive fermions in a given quantum gravity framework. In this letter the two mass terms entering the Hamiltonian constraint for the Einstein - Majorana system are studied in the loop representation of quantum gravity and fermions. One term resembles a bare mass gap because it is not zero for states with zero (fermion) kinetic energy, unlike the other term which is interpreted as `dressing' the mass. The former contribution originates from (at least) triple intersections of the loop states acted on whilst the latter is traced back to every pair of coinciding end points, where fermions are located. Thus, fermion mass terms get encoded in the combinatorics of loop states. Finally, the possibility is discussed of relating fermion masses to the topology of space.