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11 - Loop quantum gravity and cosmology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2012

By
Martin Bojowald
Edited by
Jeff Murugan ,
Amanda Weltman  and
George F. R. Ellis
Martin Bojowald
Affiliation:
Penn State University
Jeff Murugan
Affiliation:
University of Cape Town
Amanda Weltman
Affiliation:
University of Cape Town
George F. R. Ellis
Affiliation:
University of Cape Town
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Summary

“It would be permissible to look upon the Hamiltonian form as the fundamental one, and there would then be no fundamental four-dimensional symmetry in the theory. One would have a Hamiltonian built up from four weekly [sic] vanishing functions, given by [the Hamiltonian and diffeomorphism constraints]. The usual requirement of four-dimensional symmetry in physical laws would then get replaced by the requirement that the functions have weakly vanishing P.B.'s, so that they can be provided with arbitrary coefficients in the equations of motion, corresponding to an arbitrary motion of the surface on which the state is defined.” P. A. M. Dirac, in “The theory of gravitation in Hamiltonian form,” Proc. Roy. Soc. A 246 (1958) 333–43.

Introduction

In its different incarnations, quantum gravity must face a diverse set of fascinating problems and difficulties, a set of issues best seen as both challenges and opportunities. One of the main problems in canonical approaches, for instance, is the issue of anomalies in the gauge algebra underlying space-time covariance. Classically, the gauge generators, given by constraints, have weakly vanishing Poisson brackets with each other: they vanish when the constraints are satisfied. After quantization, the same behavior must be realized for commutators of quantum constraints (or for Poisson brackets of effective constraints), or else the theory becomes inconsistent due to gauge anomalies. If and how canonical quantum gravity can be obtained in an anomaly-free way is an important question, not yet convincingly addressed in full generality.

Type
Chapter
Information
Foundations of Space and Time
Reflections on Quantum Gravity
 , pp. 211 - 256
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

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