Toller matrices and the Feynman $i\varepsilon$ in spinfoams

Abstract

We study the analytic properties and three equivalent representations of the Toller matrices $T^{(\pm)}$ which appear in the causal formulation of spinfoam transition amplitudes for 4d Lorentzian quantum gravity. These are polynomially bounded functions on the Lorentz group which satisfy the relation $T^{(+)}+T^{(-)}=D$, where the Wigner matrix $D$ provides a unitary irreducible representation of $SL(2,C)$. Ruhl's definition of $T^{(\pm)}$ in terms of analyticity and asymptotic properties is shown to be equivalent to the recently introduced Feynman $i\varepsilon$ prescription in spinfoams. We show that, equivalently, they can be represented as an integral over eigenvalues of the boost operator, which results in a sum over residues. The latter reproduces the Wick rotation relating Euclidean $Spin(4)$ to Lorentzian $SL(2,C)$ spinfoams studied by Dona, Gozzini and Nicotra. We provide explicit expressions in terms of hypergeometric functions and specialize them to the $\gamma$-simple representations relevant for spinfoams.