Related papers: Lovelock gravity and Weyl's tube formula
In three spacetime dimensions, general relativity drastically simplifies, becoming a ``topological'' theory with no propagating local degrees of freedom. Nevertheless, many of the difficult conceptual problems of quantizing gravity are…
The construction of an averaged theory of gravity based on Einstein's General Relativity is very difficult due to the non-linear nature of the gravitational field equations. This problem is further exacerbated by the difficulty in defining…
We recall a classical theory of torsion gravity with an asymmetric metric, sourced by a Nambu-Goto + Kalb-Ramond string . We explain why this is a significant gravitational theory, and in what sense classical general relativity is an…
General relativity allows for inhomogeneous and anisotropic universes with finite action. By contrast, in quadratic gravity such solutions obtain infinite action and are thus eliminated. What remains are homogeneous and isotropic solutions…
In models of emergent gravity the metric arises as the expectation value of some collective field. Usually, many different collective fields with appropriate tensor properties are candidates for a metric. Which collective field describes…
A linear Lorentz connection has always two fundamental derived characteristics: curvature and torsion. The latter is assumed to vanish in general relativity. Three gravitational models involving non-vanishing torsion are examined:…
Some problems of cosmology: the big bang singularity, the origin of conventional matter, of dark matter and of dark energy may be successfully described and treated in the framework of the Weyl-Dirac theory. This theory, being a minimal…
In these two lectures I describe the difficulties one encounters when trying to construct a framework in which to describe topology change in classical general relativity where one sticks to the assumption of an everywhere non-singular…
Crucial observational tests of gravity physics are reviewed. Such tests are able to clarify the key question on the nature of gravitational interaction: is gravity the curvature of space? or is gravity a matter field in Minkowski flat space…
It is possible that relativistic symmetries become deformed in the semiclassical regime of quantum gravity. Mathematically, such deformations lead to the noncommutativity of spacetime geometry and non-vanishing curvature of momentum space.…
Any acceptable quantum gravity theory must allow us to recover the classical spacetime in the appropriate limit. Moreover, the spacetime geometrical notions should be intrinsically tied to the behavior of the matter that probes them. We…
The universal character of the gravitational interaction provided by the equivalence principle motivates a geometrical description of gravity. The standard formulation of General Relativity \`a la Einstein attributes gravity to the…
When general relativity is augmented by quadratic gravity terms, it becomes a renormalisable theory of gravity. This theory may admit a non-Gaussian fixed point as envisaged in the asymptotic safety program, rendering the theory trustworthy…
We investigate the phase space of a typical model of 1+1 dimensional gravity (Jackiw-Teitelboim model with cylindrical topology) using its reformulation as a non abelian gauge theory based on the sl(2,R) algebra. Modifying the conventional…
Of those gauge theories of gravity known to be equivalent to general relativity, only the biconformal gauging introduces new structures - the quotient of the conformal group of any pseudo-Euclidean space by its Weyl subgroup always has…
A model is proposed to demonstrate that classical general relativity can emerge from loop quantum gravity, in a relational description of gravitational field in terms of the coordinates given by matter. Local Dirac observables and coherent…
In a recent paper [1], it was introduced a new class of gravitational theories with two local degrees of freedom. The existence of these theories apparently challenges the distinctive role of general relativity as the unique non-linear…
In the gauge theoretic approach of gravity, General Relativity is described by gauging the symmetry of the tangent manifold in four dimensions. Usually the dimension of the tangent space is considered to be equal to the dimension of the…
It is possible to define an analogue of the Riemann tensor for $N$th order Lovelock gravity, its characterizing property being that the trace of its Bianchi derivative yields the corresponding analogue of the Einstein tensor. Interestingly…
The generalized $f(R)$ gravity with curvature-matter coupling in five-dimensional (5D) spacetime can be established by assuming a hypersurface-orthogonal spacelike Killing vector field of 5D spacetime, and it can be reduced to the 4D…