Quantization of linearized gravity in cosmological vacuum spacetimes

Abstract

Linearized Einstein gravity (with possibly nonzero cosmological constant) is quantized in the framework of algebraic quantum field theory by analogy with Dimock's treatment of electromagnetism [Rev. Math. Phys. 4 (1992) 223--233]. To achieve this, the classical theory is developed in a full, rigorous and systematic fashion, with particular attention given to the circumstances under which the symplectic product is weakly non-degenerate and to the related question of whether the space of solutions is separated by the classical observables on which the quantum theory is modelled.