Double BFV quantisation of 3d Gravity

Abstract

We extend the cohomological setting developed by Batalin, Fradkin and Vilkovisky (BFV), which produces a resolution of coisotropic reduction in terms of hamiltonian dg manifolds, to the case of nested coisotropic embeddings $C\hookrightarrow C_\circ \hookrightarrow F$ inside a symplectic manifold $F$. To this, we naturally assign $\underline{C}$ and $\underline{C_\circ}$, as well as the respective BFV dg manifolds. We show that the data of a nested coisotropic embedding defines a natural graded coisotropic embedding inside the BFV dg manifold assigned to $\underline{C}$, whose reduction can further be resolved using the BFV prescription. We call this construction \emph{double BFV resolution}, and we use it to prove that "resolution commutes with reduction" for a general class of nested coisotropic embeddings. We then deduce a quantisation of $\underline{C}$, from the (graded) geometric quantisation of the double BFV Hamiltonian dg manifold (when it exists), following the quantum BFV prescription. As an application, we provide a well defined candidate space of (physical) quantum states of three-dimensional Einstein--Hilbert theory, which is thought of as a partial reduction of the Palatini--Cartan model for gravity.