Abstract
Canonical quantization of an action containing a curvature-squared term requires the introduction of an auxiliary variable. Boulware and coworkers prescribed a technique to choose such a variable, by taking the derivative of the action with respect to the highest derivative of the field variable, present in the action. It has been shown that this technique can even be applied in situations where the introduction of auxiliary variables is not required, leading to the wrong Wheeler–De Witt equation. It has also been pointed out that Boulware's prescription should be taken up only after removing all possible total derivative terms from the action. Once this is done only a unique description of quantum dynamics would emerge. For the curvature-squared term this technique yields, for the first time, a quantum mechanical probability interpretation of quantum cosmology, and an effective potential whose extremization leads to Einstein's equation. We conclude that the Einstein–Hilbert action should essentially be modified by, at least, a curvature-squared term to get a quantum mechanical formulation of quantum cosmology and hence extend our previous work for such an action along with a scalar field.