Aspects of gravitation in the light cone gauge

Abstract

In this thesis we investigate gravitation in light cone gauge There are various motivationsto study pure gravity in four dimensions as a field theory in light cone gauge These include recent results pertaining to scattering amplitudes KLT relations and MHVLagrangians Further recent analysis of the finiteness properties of N 8 supergravitystrongly suggests that we must revisit pure gravity as a field theory Although some work has gone into understanding light cone gravity in flat spacetime there are no findings as far as light cone gravity on curved backgrounds is concerned This is one of the gaps in the literature that the present thesis aims to address Additionally this thesis investigates some of the mathematical structures of the light coneHamiltonians describing gravity theories both without and with supersymmetry Wefind unique quotquadratic formquot structures in these Hamiltonians and comment on the possiblesignificance of these structures newline newline