Quantum gravity and cosmological observations

Abstract

Quantum gravity places entirely new challenges on the formulation of a consistent theory as well as on an extraction of potentially observable effects. Quantum corrections due to the gravitational field are commonly expected to be tiny because of the smallness of the Planck length. However, a consistent formulation now shows that key features of quantum gravity imply magnification effects on correction terms which are especially important in cosmology with its long stretches of evolution. After a review of the salient features of recent canonical quantizations of gravity and their implications for the quantum structure of space-time a new example for potentially observable effects is given.