A note on the canonical formalism for gravity

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.

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Research supported in part by NSF Grant PHY-2207584.

Published 13 July 2023