An extension of the Faddeev–Jackiw technique to fields in curved spacetimes

Abstract

The Legendre transformation on singular Lagrangians, e.g. Lagrangians representing gauge theories, fails due to the presence of constraints. The Faddeev–Jackiw technique, which offers an alternative to that of Dirac, is a symplectic approach to calculating a Hamiltonian paired with a well-defined initial value problem when working with a singular Lagrangian. This phase space coordinate reduction was generalized by Barcelos-Neto and Wotzasek to simplify its application. We present an extension of the Faddeev–Jackiw technique for constraint reduction in gauge field theories and non-gauge field theories that are coupled to a curved spacetime that is described by general relativity. A major difference from previous formulations is that we do not explicitly construct the symplectic matrix, as that is not necessary. We find that the technique is a useful tool that avoids some of the subtle complications of the Dirac approach to constraints. We apply this formulation to the Ginzburg–Landau action and provide a calculation of its Hamiltonian and Poisson brackets in a curved spacetime.