Matter, quantum gravity, and adiabatic phase

Based on the observation that particle masses are much smaller than the Planck mass, a framework for the matter-gravity system in which matter follows gravitation adiabatically is examined in a path-integral approach. It is found that the equations that the resulting gravitational wave function satisfies involve, in addition to the expectation value of the matter stress tensor, an adiabatically induced gauge field which can lead to interesting topological structures in superspace. Such a non-trivial geometric contribution modifies the semiclassical quantization condition and can change the conserved quantities associated with the symmetries of the system. © 1990 The American Physical Society.