Linearized 3D gravity with dust

Abstract

Three-dimensional gravity coupled to pressureless dust is a field theory with one local degree of freedom. In the canonical framework, the dust-time gauge encodes this physical degree of freedom as a metric function. We find that the dynamics of this field, up to spatial diffeomorphism flow, is independent of spatial derivatives and is therefore ultralocal. We also derive the linearized equations about flat spacetime, and show that the physical degree of freedom may be viewed as either a traceless or a transverse mode.