Canonical quantisation via conditional symmetries of the closed FLRW model coupled to a scalar field

We study the classical, quantum and semiclassical solutions of a Robertson-Walker spacetime coupled to a massless scalar field. The Lagrangian of these minisuperspace models is singular and the application of the theory of Noether symmetries is modified to include the conditional symmetries of the corresponding (weakly vanishing) Hamiltonian. These are found to be the simultaneous symmetries of the supermetric and the superpotential. The quantisation is performed adopting the Dirac proposal for constrained systems. The innovation in the approach we use is that the integrals of motion related to the conditional symmetries are promoted to operators together with the Hamiltonian and momentum constraints. These additional conditions imposed on the wave function render the system integrable and it is possible to obtain solutions of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. Finally, we use the wave function to perform a semiclassical analysis following Bohm and make contact with the classical solution. The analysis starts with a modified Hamilton-Jacobi equation from which the semiclassical momenta are defined. The solutions of the semiclassical equations are then studied and compared to the classical ones in order to understand the nature and behaviour of the classical singularities.