2,111 research outputs found
BOUNDARY CONDITIONS FOR THE SCALAR FIELD IN THE PRESENCE OF SIGNATURE CHANGE
We show that, contrary to recent criticism, our previous work yields a
reasonable class of solutions for the massless scalar field in the presence of
signature change.Comment: 11 pages, Plain Tex, no figure
Gravity and Signature Change
The use of proper ``time'' to describe classical ``spacetimes'' which contain
both Euclidean and Lorentzian regions permits the introduction of smooth
(generalized) orthonormal frames. This remarkable fact permits one to describe
both a variational treatment of Einstein's equations and distribution theory
using straightforward generalizations of the standard treatments for constant
signature.Comment: Plain TeX, 6 pages; to appear in GR
A New Look at the Ashtekar-Magnon Energy Condition
In 1975, Ashtekar and Magnon showed that an energy condition selects a unique
quantization procedure for certain observers in general, curved spacetimes. We
generalize this result in two important ways, by eliminating the need to assume
a particular form for the (quantum) Hamiltonian, and by considering the
surprisingly nontrivial extension to nonminimal coupling.Comment: REVTeX, 10 page
Reply Comment: Comparison of Approaches to Classical Signature Change
We contrast the two approaches to ``classical" signature change used by
Hayward with the one used by us (Hellaby and Dray). There is (as yet) no
rigorous derivation of appropriate distributional field equations. Hayward's
distributional approach is based on a postulated modified form of the field
equations. We make an alternative postulate. We point out an important
difference between two possible philosophies of signature change --- ours is
strictly classical, while Hayward's Lagrangian approach adopts what amounts to
an imaginary proper ``time" on one side of the signature change, as is
explicitly done in quantum cosmology. We also explain why we chose to use the
Darmois-Israel type junction conditions, rather than the Lichnerowicz type
junction conditions favoured by Hayward. We show that the difference in results
is entirely explained by the difference in philosophy (imaginary versus real
Euclidean ``time"), and not by the difference in approach to junction
conditions (Lichnerowicz with specific coordinates versus Darmois with general
coordinates).Comment: 10 pages, latex, no figures. Replying to - "Comment on `Failure of
Standard Conservation Laws at a Classical Change of Signature'", S.A.
Hayward, Phys. Rev. D52, 7331-7332 (1995) (gr-qc/9606045
The Construction of Spinor Fields on Manifolds with Smooth Degenerate Metrics
We examine some of the subtleties inherent in formulating a theory of spinors
on a manifold with a smooth degenerate metric. We concentrate on the case where
the metric is singular on a hypersurface that partitions the manifold into
Lorentzian and Euclidean domains. We introduce the notion of a complex spinor
fibration to make precise the meaning of continuity of a spinor field and give
an expression for the components of a local spinor connection that is valid in
the absence of a frame of local orthonormal vectors. These considerations
enable one to construct a Dirac equation for the discussion of the behavior of
spinors in the vicinity of the metric degeneracy. We conclude that the theory
contains more freedom than the spacetime Dirac theory and we discuss some of
the implications of this for the continuity of conserved currents.Comment: 24 pages, LaTeX (RevTeX 3.0, no figures), To appear in J. Math. Phy
Quaternionic Spin
We rewrite the standard 4-dimensional Dirac equation in terms of quaternionic
2-component spinors, leading to a formalism which treats both massive and
massless particles on an equal footing. The resulting unified description has
the correct particle spectrum to be a generation of leptons, with the correct
number of spin/helicity states. Furthermore, precisely three such generations
naturally combine into an octonionic description of the 10-dimensional massless
Dirac equation, as discussed in previous work.Comment: LaTeX2e, 15 pages, 1 PS figure; to appear in Clifford '99 proceeding
Pair of null gravitating shells III. Algebra of Dirac's observables
The study of the two-shell system started in ``Pair of null gravitating
shells I and II'' (gr-qc/0112060--061) is continued. The pull back of the
Liouville form to the constraint surface, which contains complete information
about the Poisson brackets of Dirac observables, is computed in the singular
double-null Eddington-Finkelstein (DNEF) gauge. The resulting formula shows
that the variables conjugate to the Schwarzschild masses of the intershell
spacetimes are simple combinations of the values of the DNEF coordinates on
these spacetimes at the shells. The formula is valid for any number of in- and
out-going shells. After applying it to the two-shell system, the symplectic
form is calculated for each component of the physical phase space; regular
coordinates are found, defining it as a symplectic manifold. The symplectic
transformation between the initial and final values of observables for the
shell-crossing case is written down.Comment: 26 pages, Latex file using amstex, some references correcte
Actions for signature change
This is a contribution on the controversy about junction conditions for
classical signature change. The central issue in this debate is whether the
extrinsic curvature on slices near the hypersurface of signature change has to
be continuous ({\it weak} signature change) or to vanish ({\it strong}
signature change). Led by a Lagrangian point of view, we write down eight
candidate action functionals ,\dots as possible generalizations of
general relativity and investigate to what extent each of these defines a
sensible variational problem, and which junction condition is implied. Four of
the actions involve an integration over the total manifold. A particular
subtlety arises from the precise definition of the Einstein-Hilbert Lagrangian
density . The other four actions are constructed as sums of
integrals over singe-signature domains. The result is that {\it both} types of
junction conditions occur in different models, i.e. are based on different
first principles, none of which can be claimed to represent the ''correct''
one, unless physical predictions are taken into account. From a point of view
of naturality dictated by the variational formalism, {\it weak} signature
change is slightly favoured over {\it strong} one, because it requires less
{\it \`a priori} restrictions for the class of off-shell metrics. In addition,
a proposal for the use of the Lagrangian framework in cosmology is made.Comment: 36 pages, LaTeX, no figures; some corrections have been made, several
Comments and further references are included and a note has been added
Distributional Modes for Scalar Field Quantization
We propose a mode-sum formalism for the quantization of the scalar field
based on distributional modes, which are naturally associated with a slight
modification of the standard plane-wave modes. We show that this formalism
leads to the standard Rindler temperature result, and that these modes can be
canonically defined on any Cauchy surface.Comment: 15 pages, RevTe
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