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Wolfgang Wieland

Portrait de Wolfgang Wieland

Area of Research:
Quantum Gravity

Research Interests

Space, time and causality are like a vast ordering structure for our observations. In Newtonian gravity, matter fills this structure according to the dynamical laws, but the structure itself stays rigid. General relativity unfreezed this rigidity: gravity bends spacetime, and the causal structure becomes itself dynamical. Quantum theory, on the other hand, has taught us that nature is intrinsically probabilistic --” the Heisenberg uncertainty principle sets a fundamental limit to how much we can now about a quantum system. The main theme of my research program is to bring these lessons together -- my goal is to understand the causal structure of spacetime once both quantum theory and general relativity become equally important. On a more technical level, the goal is to quantise the light cone structure of spacetime and treat the causal structure of spacetime as a quantum system itself.

My main research interests are:
- Quantum gravity
- Loop quantum gravity and spinfoam models
- Spin structure of spacetime
- Quasi-local observables/quasi-local realisations of the holographic principle

Positions Held

  • 2018--2020, Senior Postdoctoral Fellow at Perimeter Institute.
  • 2015--2018, Postdoctoral fellow at Perimeter Institute.
  • 2013--2015, Postdoctoral scholar at the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos (Pennsylvania State University, United States)

Awards

  • Bronstein Prize in Loop Quantum Gravity (2019)
  • Prix de thèse, Aix-Marseille Université (2014)

Recent Publications

  • W. Wieland, Twistor representation of Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity,
    accepted for publication in Class. Quant. Grav. (2020), arXiv: 2003.13887.
  • Jeevan Chandra Namburi, W. Wieland, Deformed Heisenberg charges in three-dimensional gravity,
    JHEP 2003 (2020) 175, arXiv: 1912.09514.
  • M. Dupuis, F. Girelli, A. Osumanu and W. Wieland, First-order formulation of teleparallel gravity and dual loop gravity,
    Class. Quantum Grav. 37 (2020) 085023, arXiv: 1906.02801.
  • W. Wieland, Generating functional for gravitational null initial data,
    Class. Quant. Grav. 36 (2019), 235007, arXiv: 1905.06357.
  • W. Wieland, Conformal boundary conditions, loop gravity and the continuum,
    JHEP (2018) 2018: 89, arXiv: 1804.08643.
  • E. Adjei, S. Gielen, W. Wieland, Cosmological evolution as squeezing: a toy model for group field cosmology,
    Class. Quantum Grav. 35 (2018), 105016, arXiv: 1712.07266.
  • W. Wieland, Quantum gravity in three dimensions, Witten spinors and the quantisation of length,
    Nuclear Physics B 930 (2018), 219-234, arXiv: 1711.01276.
  • W. Wieland, New boundary variables for classical and quantum gravity on a null surface,
    Class. Quantum Grav. 34 (2017), 215008 (30pp), arXiv: 1704.07391.
  • W. Wieland, Fock Representation of Gravitational Boundary Modes and the Discreteness of the Area Spectrum,
    Ann. Henri Poincaré 18 (2017), 3695, arXiv: 1706.00479.
  • W. Wieland, Discrete gravity as a topological field theory with light-like curvature defects,
    JHEP 5 (2017), 142, arXiv: 1611.02784.
  • W. Wieland, Quasi-local gravitational angular momentum and centre of mass from generalised Witten equations,
    Gen. Rel. Grav. 49 (2017), 38, arXiv: 1604.07428.
  • W. Wieland, New action for simplicial gravity in four dimensions,
    Class. Quant. Grav. 32 (2015), 015016, arXiv: 1407.0025.
  • W. Wieland, A one-dimensional action for simplicial gravity in three dimensions,
    Phys. Rev. D 90 (2014), 044008, arXiv: 1402.6708.
  • W. Wieland, Hamiltonian spinfoam gravity,
    Class. Quant. Grav. 31 (2014), 025002, arXiv: 1301.5859.
  • E. Bianchi, M. Han, E. Magliaro, C. Perini, C. Rovelli, W. Wieland, Spinfoam fermions,
    Class. Quant. Grav. 30 (2013), 235023, arXiv: 1012.4719.
  • H. M. Haggard, C. Rovelli, F. Vidotto, W. Wieland, The spin connection of twisted geometry,
    Phys. Rev. D 87 (2013), 024038, arXiv: 1211.2166.
  • S. Speziale, W. Wieland, The twistorial structure of loop-gravity transition amplitudes,
    Phys. Rev. D. 86 (2012), 124023, arXiv: 1207.6348.
  • W. Wieland, Twistorial phase space for complex Ashtekar variables,
    Class. Quant. Grav. 29 (2012), 045007, arXiv: 1107.5002.
  • W. Wieland, Complex Ashtekar variables and reality conditions for Holst's action,
    Annales Henri Poincaré 12 (2012), 425, arXiv: 1012.1738.
  • E. Bianchi, W. Wieland, Horizon energy as the boost boundary term in general relativity and loop gravity, arXiv: 1205.5325.
  • W. Wieland, Complex Ashtekar variables, the Kodama state and spinfoam gravity, arXiv: 1105.2330.

Seminars

  • Quantum Gravity 2020 (Perimeter Institute, Canada), panel discussion: on Black Holes, Topology Change, and Thermality with Herman Verlinde (Princeton, USA), Clifford Johnson (University of Southern California, USA), and Hal Haggard (Bard College, USA).
  • Lecture on Quantum Gravity at the Austrian Particle Physics Retreat (FAKT Workshop 2020, Semmering, Austria).
  • Twistors Meet Loops Conference at Centre International de Rencontres Mathématiques (CIRM, Marseille, France), Sparling three-form and loop gravity edge modes, 2019-09-03.
  • LOOPS'19, Pennsylvania State University (StateCollege, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.), invited plenary talk on Boundaries in loop quantum gravity. 2019-06-19.
  • Peyresq Physics 23: Micro and Macro Structure of Spacetime (Peyresq, France), Loop quantum gravity and the continuum, 2018-06-11,
  • APS April Meeting 2018 (Columbus, Ohio), Loop Quantum Gravity and the Quantization of Null Surfaces , 2017-07-05, slides.
  • New boundary variables for Classical and Quantum Gravity on a null surface, Seminar at IQOQI (Vienna, Austria), 2017-07-25.
  • Loops'17 (Warsaw, Poland), New boundary variables for classical and quantum gravity, 2017-07-05, slides.
  • Spinors as boundary variables for gravity on a null surface, Seminar of the Gravitational Physics Group at the University of Vienna, 2017-03-01.
  • Four Lectures on non-perturbative quantum gravity, Lectures held at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Innsbruck, February 2017.
  • Spinors as boundary variables for gravity on a null surface, Seminar given at the Centre de Physique Théorique (Marseille, France), 2017-02-21.
  • Fifth Tux winter workshop on Quantum Gravity (Tux, Austria), Spinors as boundary variables for gravity on a null surface, 2017-02-21.
  • Discrete Gravity as a topological field theory with defects, Seminar given at Louisiana State University (Baton Rouge, USA), November 2016.
  • Quasilocal free energy: Positivity and monotonicity, Seminar given at Caltech, October 2016.
  • PIRSA:19030081, PSI 2018/2019 - Explorations in Quantum Gravity - Lecture 14, 2019-03-21, PSI 2018/2019 - Explorations in Quantum Gravity (Dupuis)
  • PIRSA:15090076, TBA, 2015-09-28, Renormalization in Background Independent Theories: Foundations and Techniques
  • PIRSA:14110116, Worldline formalism for covariant loop gravity, 2014-11-06, Quantum Gravity
  • PIRSA:14030088, A one-dimensional action for simplicial gravity in three dimensions, 2014-03-06, Quantum Gravity
  • PIRSA:13070045, Spin Foams - 2, 2013-07-22, Loops 13
  • PIRSA:12020129, Spinor Quantisation for Complex Ashtekar Variables, 2012-02-29, Quantum Gravity