Extending the rigidity of general relativity

Abstract

We give the most general conditions to date which lead to uniqueness of the general relativistic Hamiltonian. Namely, we show that all spatially covariant generalizations of the scalar constraint which extend the standard one while remaining quadratic in the momenta are second class. Unlike previous investigations along these lines, we do not require a specific Poisson bracket algebra, and the quadratic dependence on the momenta is completely general, with an arbitrary local operator as the kinetic term.