Abelian Ashtekar formulation from the ADM action

Abstract

We study the Ashtekar formulation of linear gravity starting from the ADM first order action for the non linear theory, linearizing it, and performing a canonical transformation that coordinatizes the phase space in terms of the already linearized Ashtekar variables. The results obtained in this way are in accordance with those obtained through the standard method, in which, after introducing the Ashtekar variables for the full theory, a linearization around the flat Abelian connection and its conjugate momentum is performed.