Probing Quantum General Relativity Through Exactly Soluble Midi-Superspaces II: Polarized Gowdy Models

TL;DR

This paper presents a complete canonical quantization of polarized Gowdy midi-superspaces with 3-torus topology, advancing the understanding of quantum gravity in simplified cosmological models.

Contribution

It provides the first systematic geometrodynamical quantization of the polarized Gowdy model, extending previous work on symmetry-reduced quantum gravity.

Findings

Successful canonical quantization of the Gowdy model

Reduction from 4D to 3D spacetime in the quantum setting

Establishment of a systematic framework for quantum Gowdy models

Abstract

Canonical quantization of the polarized Gowdy midi-superspace with a 3-torus spatial topology is carried out. As in an earlier work on the Einstein-Rosen cylindrical waves, symmetry reduction is used to cast the original problem in 4-dimensional space-times to a 3-dimensional setting. To our knowledge, this is the first complete, systematic treatment of the Gowdy model in the geometrodynamical setting.