English

The Quantum Modular Group in (2+1)-Dimensional Gravity

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2010-04-28 v2 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

The role of the modular group in the holonomy representation of (2+1)-dimensional quantum gravity is studied. This representation can be viewed as a "Heisenberg picture", and for simple topologies, the transformation to the ADM "Schr{\"o}dinger picture" may be found. For spacetimes with the spatial topology of a torus, this transformation and an explicit operator representation of the mapping class group are constructed. It is shown that the quantum modular group splits the holonomy representation Hilbert space into physically equivalent orthogonal ``fundamental regions'' that are interchanged by modular transformations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.gr-qc/9807087,
  title  = {The Quantum Modular Group in (2+1)-Dimensional Gravity},
  author = {S. Carlip and J. E. Nelson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:gr-qc/9807087},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

23 pages, LaTeX, no figures; minor changes and clarifications in response to referee (basic argument and conclusions unaffected)