Finite-Dimensional ZX-Calculus for Loop Quantum Gravity

TL;DR

This paper introduces a finite-dimensional ZX-calculus framework for loop quantum gravity, providing a new graphical language that simplifies and generalizes calculations involving spin networks in the canonical formulation.

Contribution

It translates spin network calculations into the ZX-calculus, derives fundamental LQG objects in this framework, and proposes the Penrose Spin Calculus as a definitive language for canonical LQG.

Findings

Derived ZX-diagrams for spin network objects

Established correctness of loop removal in ZX-calculus

Proposed a matrix-like normal form for spin networks

Abstract

Loop quantum gravity (LQG) attempts to unify general relativity with quantum physics to offer a complete description of the universe by quantising spacetime geometry, but the numerical calculations we encounter are extraordinarily difficult. Progress has been made in the covariant formulation of LQG, but the tools do not carry over to the canonical formulation. These tools are graphical by nature, describing space with spin networks to make calculations in LQG more intuitive to the human hand. Recently, a new notation for working with spin networks has been used by arXiv:2412.20272 to offer the first accurate numerical results in canonical LQG by allowing the underlying graphs to change throughout the calculation, though they are forced to concede visual intuitiveness. In this thesis, we offer a more radical rephrasing of spin network calculations by translating them into the finite-dimensional ZX-calculus, extending previous attempts to translate into the standard (qubit) ZX-calculus (arXiv:2111.03114). Specifically, we derive the mixed-dimensional ZX-diagrams representing the generating objects of spin networks and the rules for the Penrose Spin Calculus (arXiv:2511.06012), and use these to present the ZX-form and correctness of "loop removal". We also derive the forms for several fundamental LQG objects in the finite-dimensional ZX-calculus for the first time. This gives us a high-level, intuitive graphical language that retains a flexibility to handle changing graph structures, and thus we argue positions the PSC as the new definitive language for canonical LQG. Furthermore, we investigate the possibility for a matrix-like normal form for spin networks deriving from a novel perspective of the PSC in terms of W-nodes.