Gauge fixing in (2+1)-gravity with vanishing cosmological constant

We apply Dirac's gauge fixing procedure to (2+1)-gravity with vanishing cosmological constant. For general gauge fixing conditions based on two point particles, this yields explicit expressions for the Dirac bracket. We explain how gauge fixing is related to the introduction of an observer into the theory and show that the Dirac bracket is determined by a classical dynamical r-matrix. Its two dynamical variables correspond to the mass and spin of a cone that describes the residual degrees of freedom of the spacetime. We show that different gauge fixing conditions and different choices of observers are related by dynamical Poincar\'e transformations. This allows us to locally classify all Dirac brackets resulting from the gauge fixing and to relate them to a set of particularly simple solutions associated with the centre-of-mass frame of the spacetime.Comment: Talk given at the Workshop on Noncommutative Field Theory and Gravity Corfu, September 7 - 11, 2011; 20 pages, 6 figure

Generalised shear coordinates on the moduli spaces of three-dimensional spacetimes

We introduce coordinates on the moduli spaces of maximal globally hyperbolic constant curvature 3d spacetimes with cusped Cauchy surfaces S. They are derived from the parametrisation of the moduli spaces by the bundle of measured geodesic laminations over Teichm\"uller space of S and can be viewed as analytic continuations of the shear coordinates on Teichm\"uller space. In terms of these coordinates the gravitational symplectic structure takes a particularly simple form, which resembles the Weil-Petersson symplectic structure in shear coordinates, and is closely related to the cotangent bundle of Teichm\"uller space. We then consider the mapping class group action on the moduli spaces and show that it preserves the gravitational symplectic structure. This defines three distinct mapping class group actions on the cotangent bundle of Teichm\"uller space, corresponding to different values of the curvature.Comment: 40 pages, 6 figure

A (2+1) non-commutative Drinfel'd double spacetime with cosmological constant

We show that the Drinfel'd double associated to the standard quantum deformation $sl_\eta(2,R)$ is isomorphic to the (2+1)-dimensional AdS algebra with the initial deformation parameter $\eta$ related to the cosmological constant $\Lambda=-\eta^2$. This gives rise to a generalisation of a non-commutative Minkowski spacetime that arises as a consequence of the quantum double symmetry of (2+1) gravity to non-vanishing cosmological constant. The properties of the AdS quantum double that generalises this symmetry to the case $\Lambda\neq 0$ are sketched, and it is shown that the new non-commutative AdS spacetime is a nonlinear $\Lambda$-deformation of the Minkowskian one.Comment: 14 pages; some comments and references adde