The quantization of gravity

DOI10.1007/978-3-319-77371-1MaRDI QIDQ5915993zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Publication date 11 April 2018

Published in Fundamental Theories of Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77371-1

black hole hyperbolic spacetime quantum gravity

Physics (00A79) Yang-Mills and other gauge theories in quantum field theory (81T13) Research exposition (monographs, survey articles) pertaining to relativity and gravitational theory (83-02) Quantization of the gravitational field (83C45) Black holes (83C57)

Review text

In the book a model for the quantisation of gravity for general hyperbolic spacetimes is proposed. For this purpose the elimination of the diffeomorphism constraint by reducing the number of variables is done. It is proved that the Euler-Lagrange equations for this special class of metrics are the full Einstein equations. The canonical quantisation is done by looking at the Wheeler-DeWitt equation in a fibre bundle \(E\), where the base space is a Cauchy hypersurface of the spacetime, and the elements of the fibres are Riemannian metrics. The following questions are considered: the quantisation of a globally hyperbolic spacetime, interaction of gravity with Yang-Mills and Higgs fields, the quantum development of an asymptotically Euclidean Cauchy hypersurface, the quantisation of a Schwarzschild-AdS black hole, the quantisation of a Kerr-AdS black hole, a partition function for quantised globally hyperbolic spacetimes with a negative cosmological constant. Editorial remark: In the literature, the notion `Wheeler-de Witt equation' is used in two different interpretations. First, the original equation by B. de Witt from the 1960s, and second, every kind of equation that serves as relativistic analogon of the zero-energy Schrödinger equation. The present reviewer applies the second one. For the readers' convenience, we also present the publisher's description of the book under review: ``A unified quantum theory incorporating the four fundamental forces of nature is one of the major open problems in physics. The Standard Model combines electro-magnetism, the strong force and the weak force, but ignores gravity. The quantization of gravity is therefore a necessary first step to achieve a unified quantum theory. In this monograph a canonical quantization of gravity has been achieved by quantizing a geometric evolution equation resulting in a gravitational wave equation in a globally hyperbolic spacetime. Applying the technique of separation of variables we obtain eigenvalue problems for temporal and spatial self-adjoint operators where the temporal operator has a pure point spectrum with eigenvalues \(\lambda_i\) and related eigenfunctions, while, for the spatial operator, it is possible to find corresponding eigendistributions for each of the eigenvalues \(\lambda_i\), if the Cauchy hypersurface is asymptotically Euclidean or if the quantized spacetime is a black hole with a negative cosmological constant. The hyperbolic equation then has a sequence of smooth solutions which are products of temporal eigenfunctions and spatial eigendistributions. Due to this `spectral resolution' of the wave equation quantum statistics can also be applied to the quantized systems. These quantum statistical results could help to explain the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

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