New action for simplicial gravity in four dimensions

Abstract

We develop a proposal for a theory of simplicial gravity with spinors as the fundamental configuration variables. The underlying action describes a mechanical system with finitely many degrees of freedom, the system has a Hamiltonian and local gauge symmetries. We will close with some comments on the resulting quantum theory, and explain the relation to loop quantum gravity and twisted geometries. The paper appears in parallel with an article by Cort\^es and Smolin, who study the relevance of the model for energetic causal sets and various other approaches to quantum gravity.