Related papers: The Dynamics of Shape
The approach to incorporate quantum effects in gravity by replacing free particle geodesics with Bohmian non-geodesic trajectories has an equivalent description in terms of a conformally related geometry, where the motion is force free,…
The 1+3 covariant approach and the covariant gauge-invariant approach to perturbations are used to analyze in depth conformal transformations in cosmology. Such techniques allow us to obtain very interesting insights on the physical content…
We discuss the quantum theory of 1+1 dimensional dilaton gravity, which is an interesting model with analogous features to the spherically symmetric gravitational systems in 3+1 dimensions. The functional measures over the metrics and the…
This dissertation investigates three main topics, all of which dealing with alternative, higher-order gravity theories in four dimensions. Firstly, we study the variational and conformal structure of those theories. Next, we analyse their…
This paper is a comprehensive investigation of the Affine Gauge Theory (AGT) as a gauge theory of gravity having the same mathematical structure as gauge theories of the other fundamental forces of nature. This mathematical structure…
A first attempt at adding matter degrees of freedom to the two-dimensional ``vacuum'' gravity model presented in gr-qc/9907071 is analyzed in this paper. Just as in the previous pure gravity case, quantum diffeomorphism operators…
The notion that the geometry of our space-time is not only a static background but can be physically dynamic is well established in general relativity. Geometry can be described as shaped by the presence of matter, where such shaping…
It is commonly accepted that the study of 2+1 dimensional quantum gravity could teach us something about the 3+1 dimensional case. The non-perturbative methods developed in this case share, as basic ingredient, a reformulation of gravity as…
Diffeomorphism invariance is often considered to be a hallmark of the theory of general relativity (GR). But closer analysis reveals that this cannot be what makes GR distinctive. The concept of diffeomorphism invariance can be defined in…
We undertake a general study of the boundary (or edge) modes that arise in gauge and gravitational theories defined on a space with boundary, either asymptotic or at finite distance, focusing on efficient techniques for computing the…
I describe several conceptual aspects of a particular paradigm which treats the field equations of gravity as emergent. These aspects are related to the features of classical gravitational theories which defy explanation within the…
Two sets of spatially diffeomorphism invariant operators are constructed in the loop representation formulation of quantum gravity. This is done by coupling general relativity to an anti- symmetric tensor gauge field and using that field to…
Isometrodynamics (ID), the gauge theory of the group of volume-preserving diffeomorphisms of an "inner" D-dimensional flat space, is tentatively interpreted as a fundamental theory of gravity. Dimensional analysis shows that the Planck…
In this paper we review some aspects of relativistic particles' mechanics in the case of a non-trivial geometry of momentum space. We start with showing how the curved momentum space arises in the theory of gravity in 2+1 dimensions coupled…
We describe "small bodies" in a non-metric gravity theory previously studied by this author. The main dynamical field of the theory is a certain triple of two-forms rather than the metric, with only the spacetime conformal structure, not…
We use a mix of field theoretic and holographic techniques to elucidate various properties of quantum entanglement entropy. In (3+1)-dimensional conformal field theory we study the divergent terms in the entropy when the entangling surface…
In this series of papers, we propose a new rendition of 3d and 4d state sum models based upon the group field theory (GFT) approach to non-perturbative quantum gravity. We will see that the group field theories investigated in the…
The equivalence class of absolute configurations of a system under the group of similarity transformations $Sim(3)$ is called the shape of the system. The $Sim(3)$ invariant Lagrangian of the modified Newtonian theory ensures the existence…
General relativity is a covariant theory of two transverse, traceless graviton degrees of freedom. According to a theorem of Hojman, Kuchar, and Teitelboim, modifications of general relativity must either introduce new degrees of freedom or…
The possibility of mass in the context of scale-invariant, generally covariant theories, is discussed. The realizations of scale invariance which are considered, are in the context of a gravitational theory where the action, in the first…