Loop quantum gravity is an approach to quantum gravity that starts from the
Hamiltonian formulation in terms of a connection and its canonical conjugate.
Quantization proceeds in the spirit of Dirac: First one defines an algebra of
basic kinematical observables and represents it through operators on a suitable
Hilbert space. In a second step, one implements the constraints. The main
result of the paper concerns the representation theory of the kinematical
algebra: We show that there is only one cyclic representation invariant under
spatial diffeomorphisms.
While this result is particularly important for loop quantum gravity, we are
rather general: The precise definition of the abstract *-algebra of the basic
kinematical observables we give could be used for any theory in which the
configuration variable is a connection with a compact structure group. The
variables are constructed from the holonomy map and from the fluxes of the
momentum conjugate to the connection. The uniqueness result is relevant for any
such theory invariant under spatial diffeomorphisms or being a part of a
diffeomorphism invariant theory.