Path integral in area tensor Regge calculus and complex connections

Euclidean quantum measure in Regge calculus with independent area tensors is considered using example of the Regge manifold of a simple structure. We go over to integrations along certain contours in the hyperplane of complex connection variables. Discrete connection and curvature on classical solutions of the equations of motion are not, strictly speaking, genuine connection and curvature, but more general quantities and, therefore, these do not appear as arguments of a function to be averaged, but are the integration (dummy) variables. We argue that upon integrating out the latter the resulting measure can be well-defined on physical hypersurface (for the area tensors corresponding to certain edge vectors, i.e. to certain metric) as positive and having exponential cutoff at large areas on condition that we confine ourselves to configurations which do not pass through degenerate metrics. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.