Quantum coherent dynamics of quasiclassical spacetimes

Abstract: In a wide range of quantum gravity theories, quasiclassical geometries, which are solutions to the Einstein field equations approximately, are described by "coherent states." Here we propose a Hamiltonian formalism for gravitational dynamics with respect to this coherent state basis, which generates time evolution of the spacetime with respect to a clock at infinity. Since the coherent states are not orthogonal, an initial quasiclassical geometry is dynamically driven into a superposition of different amplitudes. Our framework provides a dynamical mechanism for tunneling between geometries that is ubiquitous in a number of approaches to quantum gravity, from loop quantum gravity to the Euclidean path integral. We apply our framework to the problem of black hole evaporation, providing a hint at how unitarity may be preserved with the inclusion of quantum corrections to the semiclassical evolution of the black hole.