Quantum group intertwiner space from quantum curved tetrahedron

Abstract

In this paper, we develop a quantum theory of homogeneously curved tetrahedron geometry, by applying the combinatorial quantization to the phase space of tetrahedron shapes defined in \cite{Haggard:2015ima}. Our method is based on the relation between this phase space and the moduli space of SU(2) flat connections on a 4-punctured sphere. The quantization results in the physical Hilbert space as the solution of the quantum closure constraint, which quantizes the classical closure condition $M_4M_3M_2M_1=1$, $M_\nu\in \SU(2)$, for the homogeneously curved tetrahedron. The quantum group $\mathcal{U}_q(\mathfrak{su}(2))$ emerges as the gauge symmetry of a quantum tetrahedron. The physical Hilbert space of the quantum tetrahedron coincides with the Hilbert space of 4-valent intertwiners of $\mathcal{U}_q(\mathfrak{su}(2))$. In addition, we define the area operators quantizing the face areas of the tetrahedron and compute the spectrum. The resulting spectrum is consistent with the usual Loop-Quantum-Gravity area spectrum in the large spin regime but is different for small spins. This work closely relates to 3+1 dimensional Loop Quantum Gravity in presence of cosmological constant and provides a justification for the emergence of quantum group in the theory.