Some Comments on Dilaton Gravity
High Energy Physics - Theory
2013-11-14 v3
Abstract
A Weyl invariant extension of Einstein gravity is studied. It simply consists in the group averaging of Einstein's action under Weyl transformations. Contradicting cherished beliefs, a conformal anomaly is found in the trace of the equations of motion if diffeomorphism invariance is to be a symmetry of the quantum theory. This anomaly however vanishes on shell, which signals the existence of another gauge in which the anomaly is absent. It can be made also to vanish off-shell at the price of losing diffeomorphism invariance
Cite
@article{arxiv.1307.2060,
title = {Some Comments on Dilaton Gravity},
author = {Enrique Alvarez and Mario Herrero-Valea},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1307.2060},
year = {2013}
}
Comments
6 pages, to be published in the proceedings of "Windows on the universe" (Rencontres du Vietnam, 2013)