A Note On The Canonical Formalism for Gravity

TL;DR

This paper proposes a gauge-fixing method for quantum gravity in asymptotically Anti de Sitter spacetime, enabling a consistent quantum Hilbert space construction to all perturbation orders, based on phase space and Hamiltonian constraints.

Contribution

It introduces a novel gauge-fixing approach relating gravity's phase space to a cotangent bundle, facilitating quantum Hilbert space construction in AdS spacetime.

Findings

Constructs a quantum Hilbert space for AdS gravity.

Relates Einstein Hamiltonian constraint to conformal rescaling gauge fixing.

Extends the gauge-fixing method to standard Klein-Gordon particles.

Abstract

We describe a simple gauge-fixing that leads to a construction of a quantum Hilbert space for quantum gravity in an asymptotically Anti de Sitter spacetime, valid to all orders of perturbation theory. The construction is motivated by a relationship of the phase space of gravity in asymptotically Anti de Sitter spacetime to a cotangent bundle. We describe what is known about this relationship and some extensions that might plausibly be true. A key fact is that, under certain conditions, the Einstein Hamiltonian constraint equation can be viewed as a way to gauge fix the group of conformal rescalings of the metric of a Cauchy hypersurface. An analog of the procedure that we follow for Anti de Sitter gravity leads to standard results for a Klein-Gordon particle.