HARMONIC GAUGE IN CANONICAL GRAVITY

The Isham-Kuchar representation theory of the spacetime diffeomorphism group in canonical geometrodynamics is implemented in the context of harmonic coordinate conditions. The representation is carried by either an extended phase space, consisting of the cotangent bundle over the space of three-metrics, spacelike embeddings, and Lagrange multipliers which serve to enforce the harmonic gauge in the action, or by a reduced space in which the multipliers are eliminated. The approach used here is applicable to any generally covariant theory and to any coordinate conditions. The physical interpretation of the diffeomorphism Hamiltonians is discussed and compared with the analogous interpretation given by us elsewhere in terms of Gaussian coordinate conditions.