Quantisation, Representation and Reduction; How Should We Interpret the Quantum Hamiltonian Constraints of Canonical Gravity?

被引:3
作者
Thebault, Karim P. Y. [1 ]
机构
[1] Univ Sydney, Ctr Time, Sch Philosoph & Hist Enquiry, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
来源
SYMMETRY-BASEL | 2011年 / 3卷 / 02期
关键词
problem of time; canonical quantisation; symplectic reduction; Hamiltonian constraints; quantum gravity; COMPLETE OBSERVABLES;
D O I
10.3390/sym3020134
中图分类号
O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
Hamiltonian constraints feature in the canonical formulation of general relativity. Unlike typical constraints they cannot be associated with a reduction procedure leading to a non-trivial reduced phase space and this means the physical interpretation of their quantum analogues is ambiguous. In particular, can we assume that "quantisation commutes with reduction" and treat the promotion of these constraints to operators annihilating the wave function, according to a Dirac type procedure, as leading to a Hilbert space equivalent to that reached by quantisation of the problematic reduced space? If not, how should we interpret Hamiltonian constraints quantum mechanically? And on what basis do we assert that quantisation and reduction commute anyway? These questions will be refined and explored in the context of modern approaches to the quantisation of canonical general relativity.
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页码:134 / 154
页数:21
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