Unambiguous phase spaces for subregions

Abstract

The covariant phase space technique is a powerful formalism for understanding the Hamiltonian description of covariant field theories. However, applications of this technique to problems involving subregions, such as the exterior of a black hole, have heretofore been plagued by ambiguities arising at the boundary. We provide a resolution of these ambiguities by directly computing the symplectic structure from the path integral, showing that it may be written as a contour integral around a partial Cauchy surface. We comment on the implications for gauge symmetry and entanglement.