Freiburg THEP-94/20 gr-qc/9409014 CONSISTENCY OF SEMICLASSICAL GRAVITY

We discuss some subtleties which arise in the semiclassical approximation to quantum gravity. We show that integrability conditions prevent the existence of Tomonaga-Schwinger time functions on the space of three-metrics but admit them on superspace. The concept of semiclassical time is carefully examined. We point out that central charges in the matter sector spoil the consistency of the semiclassical approximation unless the full quantum theory of gravity and matter is anomaly-free. We nally discuss consequences of these considerations for quantum eld theory in at spacetime, but with arbitrary foliations. Submitted to Classical and Quantum Gravity