This award will support Professor Karel Kuchar of the University of Utah in a research collaboration with Professors Michael P. Ryan and Professor Marcos Rosenbaum of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. The researchers plan to study the general problem of quantization of the gravitational field, one of the outstanding unsolved problems of twentieth century physics. More specifically, they will examine the physical meaning of "minisuperspace" quantization of the gravitational field. Such quantization, while not physical in many respects, has always led to results that suggest it is an approximation to true physical solutions. The investigators intend to define the ways in which these solutions are indeed approximations to quantum gravity. The U.S. PI is an acknowledged leader in the study of the canonical quantization of gravity and, on the Mexican side, Professor Ryan has been involved with minisuperspace quantization and Professor Rosenbaum is an expert in classical field theory. This combination of experienced collaborators is likely to lead to substantive results in an important area of physics.
