Restricted Gauge Theory Formalism and Unimodular Gravity

TL;DR

This paper develops a formalism for quantizing restricted gauge theories, applies it to unimodular gravity, and shows its equivalence to Einstein gravity with a cosmological constant, highlighting a global degree of freedom.

Contribution

It introduces a novel Lagrangian quantization approach for restricted gauge theories and applies it to unimodular gravity, revealing their deep connection.

Findings

Derived one-loop effective action for unimodular gravity.

Established equivalence between unimodular and Einstein gravity with a cosmological constant.

Provided explicit calculations using Schwinger-DeWitt technique.

Abstract

We develop a Lagrangian quantization formalism for a class of theories obtained by the restriction of the configuration space of gauge fields from a wider (parental) gauge theory. This formalism is based on application of the Batalin-Vilkovisky technique for quantization of theories with linearly dependent generators, their linear dependence originating from a special type of projection from the originally irreducible gauge generators of the parental theory. The algebra of these projected generators is shown to be closed for parental gauge algebras closed off shell. We demonstrate that new physics of the restricted theory, as compared to its parental theory, is associated with the rank deficiency of a special gauge-restriction operator reflecting the gauge transformations of the restriction constraints functions -- this distinguishes the restricted theory from its partial gauge fixing. As a byproduct of this technique a workable algorithm for the one-loop effective action in generic first-stage reducible theory was constructed, along with the explicit set of tree-level Ward identities for gauge field, ghost, and ghosts-for-ghosts propagators. The formalism is applied to unimodular gravity theory, and its one-loop effective action is obtained in terms of functional determinants of minimal second-order operators, calculable on generic backgrounds by Schwinger-DeWitt technique of local curvature expansion. The result is shown to be equivalent to Einstein gravity theory with a cosmological term up to a special contribution of the global degree of freedom associated with the variable value of the cosmological constant. The role of this degree of freedom in a special duality relation between Einstein theory and unimodular gravity is briefly discussed.