TIME IN QUANTUM-GRAVITY - AN HYPOTHESIS

被引:290
作者
ROVELLI, C [1 ]
机构
[1] UNIV TRENTO,IST NAZL FIS NUCL,DIPARTIMENTO FIS,SEZ PADOVA,PADUA,ITALY
来源
PHYSICAL REVIEW D | 1991年 / 43卷 / 02期
关键词
D O I
10.1103/PhysRevD.43.442
中图分类号
P1 [天文学];
学科分类号
0704 ;
摘要
A solution to the issue of time in quantum gravity is proposed. The hypothesis that time is not defined at the fundamental level (at the Planck scale) is considered. A natural extension of canonical Heisenberg-picture quantum mechanics is defined. It is shown that this extension is well defined and can be used to describe the "non-Schrodinger regime," in which a fundamental time variable is not defined. This conclusion rests on a detailed analysis of which quantities are the physical observables of the theory; a main technical result of the paper is the identification of a class of gauge-invariant observables that can describe the (observable) evolution in the absence of a fundamental definition of time. The choice of the scalar product and the interpretation of the wave function are carefully discussed. The physical interpretation of the extreme "no time" quantum gravitational physics is considered.
引用
收藏
页码:442 / 456
页数:15
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