Gauge fixings, evolution generators and world-line conditions in relativistic classical mechanics with constraints

Abstract

After a review of the main models for classical relativisticN-particle systems based upon Dirac’s theory of constraints, a detailed study of their Hamiltonian formulation is made. The choice of the arbitrary functions and of the gauge-fixing constraints and the associated realizations of the reduced phase-space and of the observables by means of Dirac brackets are examined in detail. The restrictions on the gauge fixings to obtain compatibility between the evolution in the reduced phase space, generated by the total energy of the system, and the one in the constraint hypersurface, generated by the Dirac Hamiltonian, are found. It is also demonstrated that these restrictions are nothing else than the world-line conditions,i.e. gauge transformations are needed to ensure the objective existence of the world-lines and manifest covariance is broken. This is due to the property of the Dirac brackets of preserving the gauge fixings in every frame of reference. Predictive mechanics and the Currie-Hill world-line conditions are not in contradiction with the previous results: avoiding the Dirac-bracket mechanism, they save the manifest covariance but at the price of using accelerations which are complicated functions of the original potentials depending upon the whole history of the system.