Manifestly covariant canonical formalism of quantum gravity. Systematic presentation of the theory (Q797167)

This article is a survey which is addressed to mathematicians and deals with the theory of manifestly covariant canonical formalism of quantum gravity, elaborated primarily by the reviewer. The difficulties of such a theory derive from the fact that space-time coordinates \(x^{\mu}\) are n parameters, which can be identified with the geometrical space-time only asymptotically. As a result the Einstein-Hilbert-Lagrangian density is a highly non-polynomial, unrenormalizable one, Poincaré invariance is not an appropriate framework, general covariance is a spacetime symmetry and no gauge field is present as a fundamental field. On his way in establishing a consistent theory of quantum gravity, the author introduces the fundamental fields, postulates a Lagrangian density and establishes the field equations by maximizing the action. The canonical quantization is carried out consistently by setting up appropriated canonical commutation relations. The equal-time canonical commutators for the fundamental fields are obtained explicitly in closed form and it is shown that there exists a remarkable regularity in the equal-time commutators involving the \(b_{\rho}\) fields. By introducing 4n-dimensional supercoordinates it is shown that action is invariant under certain 4n-dimensional supertransformations. This property is called the choral symmetry. The above invariance of the action leads to the conservation of appropriately constructed Noether supercurrents and supercharges. The last ones form a Lie algebra similar to the Poincaré algebra, called 4n-dimensional Poincaré-like superalgebra, being a natural extension of the ordinary n-dimensional space-time symmetry. Special attention is devoted to this superalgebra in the internal Lorentz part, which is thoroughly analysed. The similarity of these symmetries of the quantum-gravity and those of the quantum theory of the Yang-Mills field is emphasized. The condition of a spontaneous symmetry breaking and the existence of Goldstone particles is analysed with respect to the generators of the above mentioned Lie algebra. The spontaneously breaking of the general linear invariance is interpreted as generating Goldstone particles identified with the gravitons. It is then shown that the global internal Lorentz invariance is spontaneously broken but the space-time symmetry generated by some operators which are identified as Lorentz generators of elementary particle physics is not spontaneously broken. It is asserted that this way of constructing the Lorentz generators is a safe basis for the construction of quantum gravity and the whole philosophy of quantum field theory (Ward-Takahashi identities, propagators, unitarity of the suitably defined S-matrix) is elaborated. The paper ends with a suggestion for the possible way for the renormalization of the theory without violating the unitarity.