Geometrodynamics in a spherically symmetric, static crossflow of null dust

Abstract

The spherically symmetric, static space-time generated by a crossflow of noninteracting radiation streams, treated in the geometrical optics limit (null dust), is equivalent to an anisotropic fluid forming a radiation atmosphere of a star. This reference fluid provides a preferred/internal time, which is employed as a canonical coordinate. Among the advantages we encounter a new Hamiltonian constraint, which becomes linear in the momentum conjugate to the internal time (therefore yielding a functional Schr\odinger equation after quantization), and a strongly commuting algebra of the new constraints.