A Geometrical Approach to Time-Dependent Gauge-Fixing

Abstract

When a Hamiltonian system is subject to constraints which depend explicitly on time, difficulties can arise in attempting to reduce the system to its physical phase space. Specifically, it is non-trivial to restrict the system in such a way that one can find a Hamiltonian time-evolution equation involving the Dirac bracket. Using a geometrical formulation, we derive an explicit condition which is both necessary and sufficient for this to be possible, and we give a formula defining the resulting Hamiltonian function. Some previous results are recovered as special cases.