Dear Colleagues,

Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) is one of the most exciting theories beyond General Relativity. Based in the discrete nature of the spacetime and mixing quantum effects with gravity, it could provide us some signatures of our Universe at very high energies. As a particular case, holonomy corrected Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC) leads to a simple Big Bounce that replaces the classical Big Bang and/or Big Rip singularity. Moreover, the matter bounce scenario in LQC (where at very early times the Universe starts in a quasi matter domination in the contracting phase and evolves through this phase to the Big Bounce, and after bouncing it enters into the expanding regime where it matches with the standard hot Friedmann model), is the most promising alternative to the inflationary paradigm.

Another important issue, for which interest has increased in recent years, is the study within in LQG of quantum black holes. Specifically, the quantization of spherical symmetric vacuum spacetimes and the black hole entropy in the context of LQG, seem to lead to new and suprising results without a classical analogous. For instance, black hole collapse could reverse turning into expansion in analogy with the bouncing Universe in LQC, or the core of a spherically symmetric black hole might be a region of high curvature rather than a singularity.

Finally, and extension of LQG to other theories, such as modified f(R) or teleparallel gravity, could yield new cosmologies in which bouncing backgrounds could be used to depict our Universe.

Prof. Dr. Jaume Haro
Guest Editor

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