Paper detail

The Conformal Rotation in Linearised Gravity

We consider the quantum mechanics of Einstein gravity linearised about flat spacetime. The two transverse-traceless components of the metric perturbation are the true physical degrees of freedom. They appear in the quantum theory as free quantum fields. Like the full Einstein action, the Euclidean action for linearised gravity is unbounded below. It is therefore not possible to use that action to represent the ground state wave function as a Euclidian functional integral over exp{[-(action) /\hbar]}. However, it is possible to represent the ground state as a Euclidian integral over the (deparametrised) action involving only the true physical degrees of freedom. Starting from this integral representation of the ground state and using the techniques of Faddeev and Popov we show how to construct a Euclidean functional integral for the ground state wave function. The integral explicitly exhibits the theory's gauge symmetry, locality, and O(4) invariance. The conformal factor appears naturally rotated into the complex plane. Other representations of the ground state are exhibited.