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The angular momentum of any quantum system should be unambiguously quantized. We show that such a quantization fails for a pure Dirac monopole due to a previously overlooked field angular momentum from the monopole-electric charge system coming from the magnetic field of the Dirac string and the electric field of the charge. Applying the point-splitting method to the monopole-charge system yields a total angular momentum which obeys the standard angular momentum algebra, but which is gauge variant. In contrast it is possible to properly quantize the angular momentum of a topological 't Hooft–Polyakov monopole plus charge. This implies that pure Dirac monopoles are not viable – only 't Hooft–Polyakov monopoles are theoretically consistent with angular momentum quantization and gauge invariance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The system under study is the Λ -Kantowski–Sachs universe. Its canonical quantization is provided based on a recently developed method: the singular minisuperspace Lagrangian describing the system, is reduced to a regular (by inserting into the dynamical equations the lapse dictated by the quadratic constraint) possessing an explicit (though arbitrary) time dependence; thus a time-covariant Schrödinger equation arises. Additionally, an invariant (under transformations t = f (t ~) ) decay probability is defined and thus "observers" which correspond to different gauge choices obtain, by default, the same results. The time of decay for a Gaussian wave packet localized around the point a = 0 (where a the radial scale factor) is calculated to be of the order ∼ 10 - 42 - 10 - 41 s . The acquired value is near the end of the Planck era (when comparing to a FLRW universe), during which the quantum effects are most prominent. Some of the results are compared to those obtained by following the well known canonical quantization of cosmological systems, i.e. the solutions of the Wheeler–DeWitt equation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]