Symmetry restriction and its application to gravity

Abstract

In the Hamiltonian formulation, it is not a priori clear whether a symmetric configuration will keep its symmetry during evolution. In this paper, we give precise requirements of when this is the case and propose a symmetry restriction to the phase space of the symmetric variables. This can often ease computation, especially when transcending from the infinite dimensional phase space of a field theory to a possibly finite dimensional subspace. We will demonstrate this in the case of gravity. A prominent example is the restriction of full Hamiltonian general relativity to the cosmological configurations of Robertson-Walker type. We will demonstrate our procedure in this setting and extend it to examples which appear useful in certain approaches to quantum gravity.