THE UNCONSTRAINED STUECKELBERG-LIKE MEMBRANES ACTION AS A REDUCED DIRAC-NAMBU-GOTO ACTION

The Stueckelberg point-particle action is found to be derived from the usual action by reducing the number of degrees of freedom. An extensi on of such a procedure to a generic p-dimensional membrane is performe d. The problem of constraints of relativistic extended objects is solv ed. It is found that the constrained action can be reduced by projecti ng the membrane world sheet into a time-like subspace. The reduced act ion so obtained is a very simple functional of independent dynamical v ariables. Such an unconstrained action opens the way towards straightf orward quantization of a generic p-dimensional membrane and represents a model for a resolution of the time problem in quantum gravity. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.