The physical gravitational degrees of freedom

When constructing general relativity (GR), Einstein required 4D general covariance. In contrast, we derive GR (in the compact, without boundary case) as a theory of evolving 3-dimensional conformal Riemannian geometries obtained by imposing two general principles: 1) time is derived from change; 2) motion and size are relative. We write down an explicit action based on them. We obtain not only GR in the CMC gauge, in its Hamiltonian 3 + 1 reformulation but also all the equations used in York's conformal technique for solving the initial-value problem. This shows that the independent gravitational degrees of freedom obtained by York do not arise from a gauge fixing but from hitherto unrecognized fundamental symmetry principles. They can therefore be identified as the long-sought Hamiltonian physical gravitational degrees of freedom.Comment: Replaced with published version (minor changes and added references

QED on Curved Background and on Manifolds with Boundaries: Unitarity versus Covariance

Some recent results show that the covariant path integral and the integral over physical degrees of freedom give contradicting results on curved background and on manifolds with boundaries. This looks like a conflict between unitarity and covariance. We argue that this effect is due to the use of non-covariant measure on the space of physical degrees of freedom. Starting with the reduced phase space path integral and using covariant measure throughout computations we recover standard path integral in the Lorentz gauge and the Moss and Poletti BRST-invariant boundary conditions. We also demonstrate by direct calculations that in the approach based on Gaussian path integral on the space of physical degrees of freedom some basic symmetries are broken.Comment: 29 pages, LaTEX, no figure

Physical Degrees of Freedom of Non-local Theories

We analyze the physical (reduced) space of non-local theories, around the fixed points of these systems, by analyzing: i) the Hamiltonian constraints appearing in the 1+1 formulation of those theories, ii) the symplectic two form in the surface on constraints. P-adic string theory for spatially homogeneous configurations has two fixed points. The physical phase space around $q=0$ is trivial, instead around $q=\frac 1g$ is infinite dimensional. For the special case of the rolling tachyon solutions it is an infinite dimensional lagrangian submanifold. In the case of string field theory, at lowest truncation level, the physical phase space of spatially homogeneous configurations is two dimensional around $q=0$, which is the relevant case for the rolling tachyon solutions, and infinite dimensional around $q=\frac {M^2}g$.Comment: 27 pages, 2 figure

Dynamical noncommutativity

The model of dynamical noncommutativity is proposed. The system consists of two interrelated parts. The first of them describes the physical degrees of freedom with coordinates q^1, q^2, the second one corresponds to the noncommutativity r which has a proper dynamics. After quantization the commutator of two physical coordinates is proportional to the function of r. The interesting feature of our model is the dependence of nonlocality on the energy of the system. The more the energy, the more the nonlocality. The lidding contribution is due to the mode of noncommutativity, however, the physical degrees of freedom also contribute in nonlocality in higher orders in \theta.Comment: published versio