Path integral quantization of parametrized field theory

Varadarajan, Madhavan

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/2289/1176

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DC Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Varadarajan, Madhavan	-
dc.date.accessioned	2006-05-10T07:01:08Z	-
dc.date.available	2006-05-10T07:01:08Z	-
dc.date.issued	2004-10-12	-
dc.identifier.citation	Physical Review D, 2004, Vol.70, 084013	en
dc.identifier.issn	1550-7998	-
dc.identifier.issn	1550-2368 (online)	-
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/2289/1176	-
dc.description.abstract	Free scalar field theory on a flat spacetime can be cast into a generally covariant form known as parametrized field theory in which the action is a functional of the scalar field as well as the embedding variables which describe arbitrary, in general curved, foliations of the flat spacetime. We construct the path integral quantization of parametrized field theory in order to analyze issues at the interface of quantum field theory and general covariance in a path integral context. We show that the measure in the Lorentzian path integral is nontrivial and is the analog of the Fradkin-Vilkovisky measure for quantum gravity. We construct Euclidean functional integrals in the generally covariant setting of parametrized field theory using key ideas of Schleich and show that our constructions imply the existence of nonstandard "Wick rotations" of the standard free scalar field two-point function. We develop a framework to study the problem of time through computations of scalar field two-point functions. We illustrate our ideas through explicit computation for a time independent (1 + 1)-dimensional foliation. Although the problem of time seems to be absent in this simple example, the general case is still open. We discuss our results in the contexts of the path integral formulation of quantum gravity and the canonical quantization of parametrized field theory.	en
dc.format.extent	229149 bytes	-
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf	-
dc.language.iso	en	en
dc.publisher	The American Physical Society	en
dc.relation.uri	http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v70/e084013	en
dc.rights	(2004) by the American Physical Society	en
dc.title	Path integral quantization of parametrized field theory	en
dc.type	Article	en
Appears in Collections:	Research Papers (TP)

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