Cosmological measurements, time and observables in (2+1)-dimensional gravity

Abstract

We investigate the relation between measurements and the physical observables for vacuum spacetimes with compact spatial surfaces in (2+1)-gravity with vanishing cosmological constant. By considering an observer who emits lightrays that return to him at a later time, we obtain explicit expressions for several measurable quantities as functions on the physical phase space of the theory: the eigentime elapsed between the emission of a lightray and its return to the observer, the angles between the directions into which the light has to be emitted to return to the observer and the relative frequencies of the lightrays at their emission and return. This provides a framework in which conceptual questions about time, observables and measurements can be addressed. We analyse the properties of these measurements and their geometrical interpretation and show how they allow an observer to determine the values of the Wilson loop observables that parametrize the physical phase space of (2+1)-gravity. We discuss the role of time in the theory and demonstrate that the specification of an observer with respect to the spacetime's geometry amounts to a gauge-fixing procedure yielding Dirac observables.