Solving Gauge Invariant Systems without Gauge Fixing: The Physical Projector in 0+1 Dimensional Theories

Abstract

The projector onto gauge invariant physical states was recently constructed for arbitrary constrained systems. This approach, which does not require gauge fixing nor any additional degrees of freedom beyond the original ones—two characteristic features of all other available methods for quantising constrained dynamics—is put to work in the context of a general class of quantum mechanical gauge invariant systems. The cases of SO(2) and SO(3) gauge groups are considered specifically, and a comprehensive understanding of the corresponding physical spectra is achieved in a straightforward manner, using only standard methods of coherent states and group theory which are directly amenable to generalisation to other Lie algebras. Results extend considerably the few examples available in the literature from much more subtle and delicate analyses implying gauge fixing and the characterization of modular space.