Paper detail

Matter in Loop Quantum Gravity without time gauge: a non-minimally coupled scalar field

We analyze the phase space of gravity non-minimally coupled to a scalar field in a generic local Lorentz frame. We reduce the set of constraints to a first-class one by fixing a specific hypersurfaces in the phase space. The main issue of our analysis is to extend the features of the vacuum case to the presence of scalar matter by recovering the emergence of an SU(2) gauge structure and the non-dynamical role of boost variables. Within this scheme, the super-momentum and the super-Hamiltonian are those ones associated with a scalar field minimally coupled to the metric in the Einstein frame. Hence, the kinematical Hilbert space is defined as in canonical Loop Quantum Gravity with a scalar field, but the differences in the area spectrum are outlined to be the same as in the time-gauge approach.