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Can Hamiltonians be boundary observables in parametrized field theories? (English) Zbl 1217.83008

Summary: It has been argued that holography in gravitational theories is related to the existence of a particularly useful Gauss Law that allows energy to be measured at the boundary. This work investigates the extent to which such Gauss Laws follow from diffeomorphism invariance. We study parametrized field theories, which are a class of diffeomorphism-invariant theories without gravity. We find that the Hamiltonian for non-gravitational parametrized field theories vanishes on shell even in the presence of a boundary and under a variety of boundary conditions. We conclude that such theories have no useful Gauss Law, consistent with the absence of holography.

MSC:

83C05 Einstein’s equations (general structure, canonical formalism, Cauchy problems)
83C40 Gravitational energy and conservation laws; groups of motions
81P15 Quantum measurement theory, state operations, state preparations
35L15 Initial value problems for second-order hyperbolic equations
83D05 Relativistic gravitational theories other than Einstein’s, including asymmetric field theories
37K65 Hamiltonian systems on groups of diffeomorphisms and on manifolds of mappings and metrics
83C75 Space-time singularities, cosmic censorship, etc.
81T40 Two-dimensional field theories, conformal field theories, etc. in quantum mechanics
83C35 Gravitational waves