Related papers: Gravitons in Flatland
I outline a series of results obtained in collaboration with A. Waldron on the properties of massive higher (s>1) spin fields in cosmological, constant curvature, backgrounds and the resulting unexpected qualitative effects on their degrees…
We construct local probes in the static patch of Euclidean dS$_3$ gravity. These probes are Wilson line operators, designed by exploiting the Chern-Simons formulation of 3D gravity. Our prescription uses non-unitary representations of…
We set up a vacuum theory of gravity with an extra dimension of vanishing proper length. The most general solution to the field equations are presented. This formulation is free of Kaluza-Klein modes and does not allow the propagation of…
We explore thermodynamic contributions to the three-dimensional de Sitter horizon originating from metric and Chern-Simons gauge field fluctuations. In Euclidean signature these are computed by the partition function of gravity coupled to…
A non-technical overview on gravity in two dimensions is provided. Applications discussed in this work comprise 2D type 0A/0B string theory, Black Hole evaporation/thermodynamics, toy models for quantum gravity, for numerical General…
We study the renormalization of some dimension-4, 7 and 10 operators in a class of nonlinear scalar-tensor theories. These theories are invariant under: (a) linear diffeomorphisms which represent an exact symmetry of the full non-linear…
Quasidilaton massive gravity is an extension of massive General Relativity to a theory with additional scale invariance and approximate internal Galilean symmetry. The theory has a novel self-accelerated solution with the metric…
Lanczos-Lovelock models of gravity represent a natural and elegant generalization of Einstein's theory of gravity to higher dimensions. They are characterized by the fact that the field equations only contain up to second derivatives of the…
We propose a formulation of gravity theory in the form of a field theory in a flat space-time with a number of dimensions greater than four. Configurations of the field under consideration describe the splitting of this space-time into a…
We investigate a three-dimensional gravitational theory on a noncommutative space which has a cosmological constant term only. We found various kinds of nontrivial solutions, by applying a similar technique which was used to seek…
It is shown that the Riemannian curvature of the 3-dimensional hypersurfaces in space-time, described by the Wilson loop integral, can be represented by a quaternion quantum operator induced by the SU(2) gauge potential, thus providing a…
We study some universal features of gravity in higher dimensions and by universal we mean a feature that remains true in all dimensions $\geq4$. They include: (a) the gravitational dynamics always follows from the Bianchi derivative of a…
A class of theories of gravity based on a Lagrangian which depends on the curvature and metric - but not on the derivatives of the curvature tensor - is of interest in several contexts including in the development of the paradigm that…
Using a first order Chern-Simons-like formulation of gravity we systematically construct higher-derivative extensions of general relativity in three dimensions. The construction ensures that the resulting higher-derivative gravity theories…
It is shown that, in the three-dimensional lattice gravity defined by Ponzano and Regge, the space of physical states is isomorphic to the space of gauge-invariant functions on the moduli space of flat $SU(2)$ connections over a…
Noncommutative three-dimensional gravity can be described in terms of a noncommutative Chern-Simons theory. We extend this structure and also propose an action for gravitational fields on an even dimensional noncommutative space. The action…
The ``dilaton'', the Goldstone boson of spontaneously broken conformal field theories (in flat spacetime), is argued to provide a surprisingly provocative scalar analog of gravity. Many precise parallels and contrasts are drawn. In…
Is it actually possible to interpret gravitation as space's property in a pure classical way. Then, we note that extended self-gravitating system equilibrium depends directly on the number of dimension of the space in which it evolves.…
In this paper we show that a particular twist of $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills in three dimensions with gauge group SU(2) possesses a set of classical vacua corresponding to the space of flat connections of the {\it complexified} gauge…
The Lovelock gravity extends the theory of general relativity to higher dimensions in such a way that the field equations remain of second order. The theory has many constant coefficients with no a priori meaning. Nevertheless it is…