Hamiltonian formulation and loop quantization of a recent extension of the Kruskal spacetime
We study the Hamiltonian formulation of the Ashtekar-Olmedo-Singh model for the description of the interior geometry of non-rotating, uncharged black holes. This model incorporates loop quantum effects through the introduction of two regularization parameters. We consider an extended phase space formalism proposed by the creators of the model that includes such parameters as configuration variables, constrained to be functions of the black hole mass. We generalize this restriction, allowing for an off-shell phase space dependence. We then introduce a gauge fixing procedure and reduce the system, proving that the reduced symplectic structure cannot reproduce the standard relativistic one in terms of the densitized triad and the Ashtekar-Barbero connection. Actually, the reduced structure precisely compensates the modifications that arise in the Hamilton equations when the regularization parameters are treated as phase space functions, rather than as numbers, attaining a consistent Hamiltonian derivation of the dynamics. We then choose the extended phase space formalism as starting point to address the loop quantization of the model. Taking the definition of certain geometric operators as the only basic ingredient and adopting prescriptions that have proven successful in loop quantum cosmology, we construct a polymer representation of all the constraints and deduce the formal expression of the physical states, assuming reasonable spectral properties for the constraint operators. The physical states turn out to be characterized by a wave function of the black hole mass with support on a very specific set. We finally discuss conditions that guarantee the existence of physical states in the region of large black hole masses. This is a first step in the development of a new loop quantum theory of black holes.