Speaker
Description
I will present our recent proposal for a relational bundle-geometric formulation of the gravitational path integral by invoking the new tool of quantum reference frames (QRFs), which in gravity are gauge-covariant coordinate systems constructed from the available field content. Formulated in terms of relational (frame-dressed) observables, this yields formally a gauge-invariant path integral without ghosts and anomalies, and in which observables and their correlators are local to a frame. A key feature of it is its built-in covariance under QRF changes: it is a perspective-neutral path integral which encodes all internal QRF perspectives and the transformations between them. This leads to several qualitative predictions: local correlators and time evolution of relational observables in one QRF perspective become fuzzy in another, and a new spectrum of relational vacua arises. Comprised of frame-dependent no-boundary and asymptotic ground states, a vacuum from one perspective appears generally excited in another. Time permitting, I may also comment on how this offers starting point for a relational notion of renormalization. [Based on arXiv:2607.21463 and work in progress.]