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As the title says, I'm looking for an explanation on how to apply canonical transformations when using the covariant phase space formalism. I'm familiar with the topic, but I haven't found a good explanation for canonical transformations. The only one I could find is in the book by DeWitt, but it is explained on page 700 on the second volume and I can't even get past the first volume, it's a bit heavy on the notation and the generalizations to include Grassmann variables and all that.


My Attempt:

In the covariant phase space formalism we start with an action principle

\begin{equation} S=\int _M L\tag{1} \end{equation} that integrates a $D$-form in spacetime over a manifold $M$. A variation of the action respect to the dynamical degrees of freedom, collectively denoted by $\phi^a$ is

\begin{equation} \delta S =\int _M E_a [\phi]\delta \phi^a+\int_{\partial M}\theta[\phi,\delta\phi]\tag{2} \end{equation}

where we used $\delta L=E_a\delta\phi^a+d\theta$. $\theta$ is the pre-symplectic potential and $E_a$ are the Euler-Lagrange equations. The equations of motion are obtained by demanding $\delta S=0$ to get

\begin{equation} E_a =0.\tag{3} \end{equation}

The presymplectic potential needs to satisfy boundary conditions for the theory to be well defined, so we get \begin{equation} \theta |_{\Gamma}=dC+F\tag{4} \end{equation}

where $C$ is an allowed corner term and $F$ is a flux term that exists for null boundaries and represents the failure of the symplectic form to be zero at the boundaries.

With the presymplectic potential we can build a presymplectic current as

\begin{equation} \omega[\delta\phi_1,\delta\phi_2]=\delta\phi_1 \theta[\phi,\delta\phi_2]-\delta\phi_2\theta[\phi,\delta\phi_1].\tag{5} \end{equation}

Integrating this over a Cauchy surface $\Sigma$ we get the presymplectic form $\tilde{\Omega}$

\begin{equation} \tilde{\Omega}=\int_\Sigma \omega.\tag{6} \end{equation}

My idea would be to first obtain a generalized version of Hamilton's equations. That would look like

\begin{equation} \delta H_s =\tilde{\Omega}\big[\delta \phi,\delta_s \phi\big]\tag{7} \end{equation}

which means that the conserved charge $H_s$ for the symmetry transformation $s$ generates the change $\delta_s \phi$. If we take $s$ to be time translations, this is exactly Hamilton's equations. Then, the idea would be to find transformations on the fields $\phi^a$ that keep this equation unchanged.

Alternatively, $H_s$ might also be thought of as the infinitesimal generator of the canonical transformation $s$, although I'm not sure if that generally makes sense. I'm stuck.

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  • $\begingroup$ Is the flux and corner terms terminology from some reference? $\endgroup$
    – Qmechanic
    Commented Nov 21, 2023 at 11:22
  • $\begingroup$ It is from the modern understanding of the covariant phase space formalism when applied to boundary symmetries in general relativity. The review by Harlow (arxiv.org/abs/1906.08616) includes the corner term and there's a bunch of work on corner terms recently. The flux is also an important part of the Wald-Zoupas construction for asymptotic conserved charges. $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 21, 2023 at 20:01

1 Answer 1

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  1. Ref. 1 is talking about the Peierls bracket in the Lagrangian formalism. It is equivalent to the presymplectic structure in the covariant Hamiltonian formalism, cf. e.g. section 4.1 in Ref. 3.

  2. Ref. 1 defines canonical transformations (CT) as Poisson morphisms wrt. the Peierls bracket. This corresponds to pre-symplectomorphisms in the covariant Hamiltonian formalism.

  3. Concerning OP's last paragraphs (v3): The Hamiltonian is not defined per se in the covariant Hamiltonian formalism, cf. e.g. Ref. 2 and this & this Phys.SE posts. Instead the EOMs are given by the EL equations.

References:

  1. B.S. DeWitt, The Global Approach to QFT, Vol. 2, 2003; chapter 33.

  2. C. Crnkovic & E. Witten, Covariant description of canonical formalism in geometrical theories. Published in Three hundred years of gravitation (Eds. S. W. Hawking and W. Israel), (1987) 676.

  3. D. Harlow & J.-q. Wu, Covariant phase space with boundaries, JHEP 10 (2020) 146, arXiv:1906.08616.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for your answer! As I said in my question, I know the DeWitt book but I was hoping for a slightly shorter than 700 pages answer. I'll check the links to other posts and the Witten paper! $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 21, 2023 at 20:07

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