Cartan's spacetime reformulation of the Newtonian theory of gravity is a
generally-covariant Galilean-relativistic limit-form of Einstein's theory of
gravity known as the Newton-Cartan theory. According to this theory, space is
flat, time is absolute with instantaneous causal influences, and the degenerate
`metric' structure of spacetime remains fixed with two mutually orthogonal
non-dynamical metrics, one spatial and the other temporal. The spacetime
according to this theory is, nevertheless, curved, duly respecting the
principle of equivalence, and the non-metric gravitational connection-field is
dynamical in the sense that it is determined by matter distributions. Here,
this generally-covariant but Galilean-relativistic theory of gravity with a
possible non-zero cosmological constant, viewed as a parameterized gauge theory
of a gravitational vector-potential minimally coupled to a complex
Schroedinger-field (bosonic or fermionic), is successfully cast -- for the
first time -- into a manifestly covariant Lagrangian form. Then, exploiting the
fact that Newton-Cartan spacetime is intrinsically globally-hyperbolic with a
fixed causal structure, the theory is recast both into a constraint-free
Hamiltonian form in 3+1-dimensions and into a manifestly covariant reduced
phase-space form with non-degenerate symplectic structure in 4-dimensions.
Next, this Newton-Cartan-Schroedinger system is non-perturbatively quantized
using the standard C*-algebraic technique combined with the geometric procedure
of manifestly covariant phase-space quantization. The ensuing unitary quantum
field theory of Newtonian gravity coupled to Galilean-relativistic matter is
not only generally-covariant, but also exactly soluble.Comment: 83 pages (TeX). A note is added on the early work of a remarkable
Soviet physicist called Bronstein, especially on his insightful contribution
to "the cube of theories" (Fig. 1) -- see "Note Added to Proof" on pages 71
and 72, together with the new references [59] and [61