Recent Developments in Classical and Quantum Theories of Connections, Including General Relativity

Abstract

General relativity can be recast as a theory of connections by performing a canonical transformation on its phase space. In this form, its (kinematical) structure is closely related to that of Yang-Mills theory and topological field theories. Over the past few years, a variety of techniques have been developed to quantize all these theories non-perturbatively. These developments are summarized with special emphasis on loop space methods and their applications to quantum gravity.