Quantization of systems with temporally varying discretization II: Local evolution moves

Abstract: Several quantum gravity approaches and field theory on an evolving lattice involve a discretization changing dynamics generated by evolution moves. Local evolution moves in variational discrete systems (1) are a generalization of the Pachner evolution moves of simplicial gravity models, (2) update only a small subset of the dynamical data, (3) change the number of kinematical and physical degrees of freedom, and (4) generate a dynamical coarse graining or refining of the underlying discretization. To systematically explore such local moves and their implications in the quantum theory, this article suitably expands the quantum formalism for global evolution moves, constructed in a companion paper, by employing that global moves can be decomposed into sequences of local moves. This formalism is spelled out for systems with Euclidean configuration spaces. Various types of local moves, the different kinds of constraints generated by them, the constraint preservation and possible divergences in resulting state sums are discussed. It is shown that non-trivial local coarse graining moves entail a non-unitary projection of (physical) Hilbert spaces and `fine grained' Dirac observables defined on them. Identities for undoing a local evolution move with its (time reversed) inverse are derived. Finally, the implications of these results for a Pachner move generated dynamics in simplicial quantum gravity models are commented on.