Spin Foam Models (SFMs) are covariant formulations of Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) in 4 dimensions. This work studies the perturbations of SFMs on a flat background. It demonstrates for the first time that smooth curved spacetime geometries satisfying Einstein equation can emerge from discrete SFMs under an appropriate low energy limit, which corresponds to a semiclassical continuum limit of SFMs. In particular, we show that the low energy excitations of SFMs on a flat background give all smooth solutions of linearized Einstein equations (spin-2 gravitons). This indicates that at the linearized level, classical Einstein gravity is indeed the low energy effective theory from SFMs. Thus our result heightens the confidence that covariant LQG is a consistent theory of quantum gravity. As a key technical tool, a regularization/deformation of the SFM is employed in the derivation. The deformation parameter δ becomes a coupling constant of a higher curvature correction term to Einstein gravity from SFM.

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Twisted geometries are understood to be the discrete classical limit of Loop Quantum Gravity. In this paper, SU(2) flat connections on (decorated) 2D Riemann surface are shown to be equivalent to the generalized twisted geometries in 3D space with cosmological constant. Various flat connection quantities on Riemann surface are mapped to the geometrical quantities in discrete 3D space. We propose that the moduli space of SU(2) flat connections on Riemann surface generalizes the phase space of twisted geometry or Loop Quantum Gravity to include the cosmological constant.

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