Related papers: Rosenfeld, Bergmann, Dirac and the Invention of Co…
This commentary reflects on the 1930 discoveries of L\'eon Rosenfeld in the domain of phase-space constraints. We start with a short biography of Rosenfeld and his motivation for this article in the context of ideas pursued by W. Pauli, F.…
Leon Rosenfeld published in 1930 the first systematic Hamiltonian approach to Lagrangian models that possess a local gauge symmetry. The application of this formalism to theories with local internal symmetries, such as electromagnetism in…
We derive the Hamilton equations of motion for a constrained system in the form given by Dirac, by a limiting procedure, starting from the Lagrangean for an unconstrained system. We thereby ellucidate the role played by the primary…
About 50 years ago, in 1958, Dirac published his formulation of generalized Hamiltonian dynamics for gravitation. Several years later Arnowitt, Deser and Misner (ADM) proposed their description of the dynamics of General Relativity which…
The Dirac-Bergmann algorithm for the Hamiltonian analysis of constrained systems is a nice and powerful tool, widely used for quantization and non-perturbative counting of degrees of freedom. However, certain aspects of its application to…
Two Hamiltonian formulations of General Relativity, due to Pirani, Schild and Skinner (Phys. Rev. 87, 452, 1952) and Dirac (Proc. Roy. Soc. A 246, 333, 1958), are considered. Both formulations, despite having different expressions for…
Dirac's approach to gauge symmetries is discussed. We follow closely the steps that led him from his conjecture concerning the generators of gauge transformations {\it at a given time} --to be contrasted with the common view of gauge…
Peter Bergmann was a co-inventor of the algorithm for converting singular Lagrangian models into a constrained Hamiltonian dynamical formalism. This talk focuses on the work of Bergmann and his collaborators in the period from 1949 to 1951.
We present the Dirac Hamiltonian formalism for a pair of $1$-form fields with a topological-like potential coupled to first-order gravity in three-dimensional spacetime. By considering the complete phase space, we derive the full structure…
The lifelong efforts of Paul A. M. Dirac were to construct localized quantum systems in the Lorentz covariant world. In 1927, he noted that the time-energy uncertainty should be included in the Lorentz-covariant picture. In 1945, he…
The gauge symmetries of a general dynamical system can be systematically obtained following either a Hamiltonean or a Lagrangean approach. In the former case, these symmetries are generated, according to Dirac's conjecture, by the first…
The problem of observables and their supposed lack of change has been significant in Hamiltonian quantum gravity since the 1950s. This paper considers the unrecognized variety of ideas about observables in the thought of Peter Bergmann, who…
These are pedagogical notes on the Hamiltonian formulation of constrained dynamical systems. All the examples are finite dimensional, field theories are not covered, and the notes could be used by students for a preliminary study before the…
In General Relativity in Hamiltonian form, change has seemed to be missing, defined only asymptotically, or otherwise obscured at best, because the Hamiltonian is a sum of first-class constraints and a boundary term and thus supposedly…
We develop a systematic Hamiltonian formulation for a gravitating topological matter system in three-dimensional spacetime, coupling a scalar gauge field and a rank-2 antisymmetric gauge field to Einstein--Cartan gravity. We perform the…
Self-consistent Hamiltonian formulation of scalar theory on the null plane is constructed following Dirac method. The theory contains also {\it constraint equations}. They would give, if solved, to a nonlinear and nonlocal Hamiltonian. The…
A standard tenet of canonical quantum gravity is that evolution generated by a Hamiltonian constraint is just a gauge transformation on the phase space and therefore does not change the physical state. The basis for this belief is a theorem…
This letter describes a novel derivation of general relativity by considering the (non)self-consistency of theories whose Hamiltonians are constraints. The constraints, from Hamilton's equations, generate the evolution, while the evolution,…
Using Dirac's approach to constrained dynamics, the Hamiltonian formulation of regular higher order Lagrangians is developed. The conventional description of such systems due to Ostrogradsky is recovered. However, unlike the latter, the…
A review is given of the presymplectic approach to relativistic physical systems and of the determination of their Dirac's observables. After relativistic mechanics and Nambu string, the Dirac's observables of Yang-Mills theory with…