Causal spin foams

Abstract

I discuss how to impose causality on spin-foam models, separating forward and backward propagation, turning a given triangulation to a 'causal set', and giving asymptotically the exponential of the Regge action, not a cosine. I show the equivalence of the prescriptions which have been proposed to achieve this. Essential to the argument is the closure condition for the 4-simplices, all made of space-like tetrahedra.