Classical and quantum geometrodynamics of two-dimensional vacuum dilatonic black holes

Abstract

We perform a canonical analysis of the system of two-dimensional (2D) vacuum dilatonic black holes. Our basic variables are closely tied to the spacetime geometry and we do not make the field redefinitions which have been made by other authors. We present a careful discussion of asymptotics in this canonical formalism. Canonical transformations are made to variables which (on shell) have a clear spacetime significance. We are able to deduce the location of the horizon on the spatial slice (on shell) from the vanishing of a combination of canonical data. The constraints dramatically simplify in terms of the new canonical variables and quantization is easy. The physical interpretation of the variable conjugate to the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner mass is clarified. This work closely parallels that done by Kuchař for the vacuum Schwarzschild black holes and is a starting point for a similar analysis, now in progress, for the case of a massless scalar field conformally coupled to a 2D dilatonic black hole.