Extrinsic Time in Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

An extrinsic time is identified in most isotropic and homogeneous cosmological models by matching them with the ideal clock - a parametrized system whose only "degree of freedom" is time -. Once this matching is established, the cosmological models are quantized in the same way as the ideal clock. The space of solutions of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation is turned out into a Hilbert space by inserting a time dependent operator in the inner product, yielding a unitary theory equivalent to the phase space reduced theory.