Physical states in matter-coupled dilaton gravity

Journal Article · Thu Feb 01 04:00:00 EST 1996 · Annals of Physics (New York)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1006/aphy.1996.0015· OSTI ID:279973

Cangemi, D ^[1]; Jackiw, R; Zwiebach, B ^[2]

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1. Department of Physics, University of California, Los Angeles, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90095-1547 (United States)
2. Center for Theoretical Physics, Laboratory for Nuclear Science and Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139-4307 (United States)

We revisit the quantization of matter-coupled, two-dimensional dilaton gravity. At the classical level and with a cosmological term, a series of field transformations leads to a set of free fields of indefinite signature. Without matter the system is represented by two scalar fields of opposite signature. With a particular quantization for the scalar with negative kinetic energy, the system has zero central charge and we find some physical states satisfying {ital all} the Virasoro conditions. With matter, the constraints cannot be solved because of the Virasoro anomaly. We discuss two avenues for consistent quantization: modification of the constraints, and BRST quantization. The first avenue appears to lead to very few physical states. The second, which roughly corresponds to satisfying half of the Virasoro conditions, results in a rich spectrum of physical states. This spectrum, however, differs significantly from that of free matter fields propagating on flat two-dimensional space-time. Copyright {copyright} 1996 Academic Press, Inc.

• DOE Contract Number: FC02-94ER40818
• OSTI ID: 279973
• Journal Information: Annals of Physics (New York), Journal Name: Annals of Physics (New York) Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 245; ISSN 0003-4916; ISSN APNYA6
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

66 PHYSICS
CONFORMAL INVARIANCE
GAUGE INVARIANCE
QUANTIZATION
QUANTUM GRAVITY
SCALAR FIELDS
STRING MODELS
TWO-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS