Local Hamiltonian for Spherically Symmetric Gravity Coupled to a Scalar Field

Open Access

Local Hamiltonian for Spherically Symmetric Gravity Coupled to a Scalar Field

Néstor Álvarez, Rodolfo Gambini, and Jorge Pullin

Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 051301 – Published 30 January 2012

Abstract

We present a gauge fixing of gravity coupled to a scalar field in spherical symmetry such that the Hamiltonian is an integral over space of a local density. Such a formulation had proved elusive over the years. As in any gauge fixing, it works for a restricted set of initial data. We argue that the set could be large enough to attempt a quantization the could include the important case of an evaporating black hole.

Received 22 November 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.051301

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Published by the American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Néstor Álvarez¹, Rodolfo Gambini¹, and Jorge Pullin²

¹Instituto de Física, Facultad de Ciencias, Iguá 4225, esq. Mataojo, Montevideo, Uruguay
²Department of Physics and Astronomy, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803-4001, USA