Quantum spin dynamics (QSD)

DOI10.1088/0264-9381/15/4/011MaRDI QIDQ4699645zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Publication date 18 November 1999

Published in Classical and Quantum Gravity (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9606089

Ashtekar variables canonical quantum gravity Wheeler-deWitt constraint

Yang-Mills and other gauge theories in quantum field theory (81T13) Quantization in field theory; cohomological methods (81T70) Lattice gravity, Regge calculus and other discrete methods in general relativity and gravitational theory (83C27) Quantization of the gravitational field (83C45)

Abstract: An anomaly-free operator corresponding to the Wheeler-DeWitt constraint of Lorentzian, four-dimensional, canonical, non-perturbative vacuum gravity is constructed in the continuum. This operator is entirely free of factor ordering singularities and can be defined in symmetric and non-symmetric form. We work in the real connection representation and obtain a well-defined quantum theory. We compute the complete solution to the Quantum Einstein Equations for the non-symmetric version of the operator and a physical inner product thereon. The action of the Wheeler-DeWitt constraint on spin-network states is by annihilating, creating and rerouting the quanta of angular momentum associated with the edges of the underlying graph while the ADM-energy is essentially diagonalized by the spin-network states. We argue that the spin-network representation is the ``non-linear Fock representation" of quantum gravity, thus justifying the term ``Quantum Spin Dynamics (QSD)".

Review text

These two papers, which should be regarded as one paper, rather than being read independently, contribute to canonical quantum gravity in the Ashtekar framework [see \textit{A. Ashtekar}, Lectures on non-perturbative canonical gravity, Advanced Series in Astrophysics and Cosmology. 6. Singapore: World Scientific (1991; Zbl 0948.83500) and the references therein]. The basic idea of this approach is, roughly speaking, to use an \(\text{ SU(2)}\) connection on the initial surface \(\Sigma\) and its canonical conjugate variable instead of the three metric and the extrinsic curvature of \(\Sigma\) as coordinates for the phase space of classical gravity. The advantage of this choice is that the canonical constraints of general relativity get a form which can be handled easier by usual quantization procedures. In fact, the Gauß and diffeomorphism constraints are, based on this method, successfully quantized [\textit{A. Ashtekar, J. Lewandowski, D. Marolf, J. Mourao} and the author, Quantization of diffeomorphism invariant theories of connections with local degrees of freedom. J. Math. Phys. 36, 6456-6493 (1995; Zbl 0856.58006)]. The subject of the present paper(s) is to treat the, still problematic, Hamiltonian, or Wheeler-deWitt constraint \(H\). The basic idea of the author is to express \(H\) in terms of the (unrescaled) Euclidean Hamiltonian constraint \(H^E\), the total extrinsic curvature \(K\) and the total volume \(V\). Since a quantized version of \(V\) exists already as a well defined, self adjoint operator and because \(K\) can be expressed as a Poisson bracket of \(V\) and the integrated \(H^E\) it turns out that we only have to find an operator \({\hat H}^E\) corresponding to \(H^E\). The construction of \({\hat H}^E\), based on triangulations of \(\Sigma\), covers the greatest part of the first paper. The rest is devoted to the Wheeler-deWitt operator \({\hat H}\) which is derived from \({\hat H}^E\) following the idea scetched above. It is shown that \({\hat H}\) is anomaly free and free of factor ordering singularities. The second paper is mainly devoted to the kernel of \({\hat H}\) and to self-adjointness properties of the constructed operators. In particular the author calculates explicity the (distributional) solutions to all constraints of Lorentzian quantum gravity in an appropriately chosen rigged Hilbert space. To do this however he uses the operator \({\hat H}\) constructed in paper one, which is not symmetric. Hence, in the remaining part of the second paper the construction scetched above is modified such that the resulting operator(s) become symmetric. Again the major work has to be done for the Euclidean Hamiltonian constraints. In addition it is shown that the symmetric version of \({\hat H}^E\) and the regulated generator of the Wick rotation transformation from the Euclidean to the Lorentzian regime (which is related to the quantized version of the total extrinsic curvature \(K\)) admit selfadjoint extensions. The papers under review (which are only the first two of a whole series) contain many interesting material and they represent significant progress in canonical quantum gravity. Unfortunately the presentation is in many places very involved, which makes it sometimes hard to follow the author's arguments.

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