Abstract

The Dirac Hamiltonian formalism is applied to a system in (2+1)-dimensions consisting of a Dirac field minimally coupled to Chern-Simons U(1) and SO(2; 1) connections, A and omega, respectively. This theory is connected to a supersymmetric Chern-Simons form in which the gravitino has been projected out (unconventional supersymmetry) and, in the case of a flat background, corresponds to the low energy limit of graphene. The separation between first-class and second-class constraints is performed explicitly, and both the field equations and gauge symmetries of the Lagrangian formalism are fully recovered. The degrees of freedom of the theory in generic sectors shows that the propagating states correspond to fermionic modes in the background determined by the geometry of the graphene sheet and the nondynamical electromagnetic field. This is shown for the following canonical sectors: i) a conformally invariant generic description where the spinor field and the dreibein are locally rescaled; ii) a specific con figuration for the Dirac fermion consistent with its spin, where Weyl symmetry is exchanged by time reparametrizations; iii) the vacuum sector psi = 0, which is of interest for perturbation theory. For the latter the analysis is adapted to the case of manifolds with boundary, and the corresponding Dirac brackets together with the centrally extended charge algebra are found. Finally, the SU(2) generalization of the gauge group is briefly treated, yielding analogous conclusions for the degrees of freedom.