Minisuperspace Canonical Quantization of the Reissner-Nordstrom Black Hole via Conditional Symmetries

Abstract: We use the conditional symmetry approach to study the $r$-evolution of a minisuperspace spherically symmetric model both at the classical and quantum level. After integration of the coordinates $t$, $\theta$ and $\phi$ in the gravitational plus electromagnetic action the configuration space dependent dynamical variables turn out to correspond to the $r$-dependent metric functions and the electrostatic field. In the context of the formalism for constrained systems (Dirac - Bergmann, ADM) with respect to the radial coordinate $r$, we set up a point-like reparameterization invariant Lagrangian. It is seen that, in the constant potential parametrization of the lapse, the corresponding minisuperspace is a Lorentzian three-dimensional flat manifold which obviously admits six Killing vector fields plus a homothetic one. The weakly vanishing $r$-Hamiltonian guarantees that the phase space quantities associated to the six Killing fields are linear holonomic integrals of motion. The homothetic field provides one more rheonomic integral of motion. These seven integrals are shown to comprise the entire classical solution space, i.e. the space-time of a Reissner-Nordstr\"om black hole, the $r$-reparametrization invariance since one dependent variable remains unfixed, and the two quadratic relations satisfied by the integration constants. We then quantize the model using the quantum analogues of the classical conditional symmetries, and show that the existence of such symmetries yields solutions to the Wheeler-DeWitt equation which, as a semiclassical analysis shows, exhibit a good correlation with the classical regime. We use the resulting wave functions to investigate the possibility of removing the classical singularities.