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Translational affine coherent states as exact solutions of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation

The Quantum Wheeler-DeWitt operator can be derived from an affine commutation relation via the affine group representation formalism for gravity, wherein a family of gauge-diffeomorphism invariant affine coherent states are constructed from a fiducial state. In this article, the role of the fiducial state is played by a regularized Gaussian peaked on densitized triad configurations corresponding to 3-metrics of constant spatial scalar curvature. The affine group manifold consists of points in the upper half plane, wherein each point is labeled by two local gravitational degrees of freedom from the Yamabe construction. From this viewpoint, here we show that the translational subgroup of affine coherent states constitute a set of exact solutions of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. The affine translational parameter $b$ admits a physical interpretation analogous to a continuous plane wave energy spectrum, where the curvature constant $k$ plays the role of the energy. This result shows that the affine translational subgroup generates transformations in the curvature constant $k$ from the Yamabe problem, while $k$ is inert under the kinematic symmetries of gravity.