Related papers: Coupling Shape Dynamics to Matter Gives Spacetime
Shape dynamics is classical theory of gravity which agrees with general relativity in many important cases, but possesses different gauge symmetries and constraints. Rather than spacetime diffeomorphism invariance, shape dynamics takes…
Gravity is understood as a geometrization of spacetime. But spacetime is also the manifold of the boundary values of the spinless point particle in a variational approach. Since all known matter, baryons, leptons and gauge bosons are…
According to General Relativity gravity is the result of the interaction between matter and space-time geometry. In this interaction space-time geometry itself is dynamical: it can store and transport energy and momentum in the form of…
Shape Dynamics is a theory of gravity that waives refoliation invariance in favor of spatial Weyl invariance. It is a canonical theory, constructed from a Hamiltonian, 3+1 perspective. One of the main deficits of Shape Dynamics is that its…
The configuration space of general relativity is superspace - the space of all Riemannian 3-metrics modulo diffeomorphisms. However, it has been argued that the configuration space for gravity should be conformal superspace - the space of…
`Shape dynamics' is meant here in the sense of a type of conformogeometrical reformulation of GR, some of which have of late been considered as generalizations of or alternatives to GR. This note concerns in particular cases based on the…
Shape dynamics is an alternative background-independent approach to classical dynamics that implements Leibnizian philosophy and Mach's Principles. It is a formulation of the dynamics of the universe in terms of the intrinsic and relational…
Classical gravity can be described as a relational dynamical system without ever appealing to spacetime or its geometry. This description is the so-called shape dynamics description of gravity. The existence of relational first principles…
The notion of "reference frame" is a central theoretical construct for interpreting the physical implications of spacetime diffeomorphism invariance in General Relativity. However, the alternative formulation of classical General Relativity…
Using a BRST treatment, we show that the equivalence of General Relativity and Shape Dynamics can be extended to a theory that respects the BRST-symmetries of General Relativity as well as the ones of an extended version of Shape Dynamics.…
Barbour's formulation of Mach's principle requires a theory of gravity to implement local relativity of clocks, local relativity of rods and spatial covariance. It turns out that relativity of clocks and rods are mutually exclusive. General…
We put forward a general framework for describing relational physical theories, which we call Pure Shape Dynamics (PSD). Elaborating on the original insights brought about by the Shape Dynamics program, PSD's novel take on relationalism is…
Shape dynamics is a reframing of canonical general relativity in which time reparametrization invariance is "traded" for a local conformal invariance. We explore the emergence of Lorentz invariance in this model in three contexts: as a…
We present a Pure Shape Dynamics (PSD) formulation of General Relativity (GR), which implements full relationalism by eliminating absolute scale and external time references from the fundamental description of gravity. Starting from the…
Shape Dynamics is a theory of gravity that replaces refoliation invariance for spatial Weyl invariance. Those solutions of the Einstein equations that have global, constant mean curvature slicings, are mirrored by solutions in Shape…
We present a scale-invariant theory, conformal gravity, which closely resembles the geometrodynamical formulation of general relativity (GR). While previous attempts to create scale-invariant theories of gravity have been based on Weyl's…
Gravity can be formulated as a gauge theory by combining symmetry principles and geometrical methods in a consistent mathematical framework. The gauge approach to gravity leads directly to non-Euclidean, post-Riemannian spacetime…
General Relativity assumes that spacetime is fully described by the metric alone. An alternative is the so called Palatini formalism where the metric and the connections are taken as independent quantities. The metric-affine theory of…
The geometrical nature of gravity emerges from the universality dictated by the equivalence principle. In the usual formulation of General Relativity, the geometrisation of the gravitational interaction is performed in terms of the…
The geometric foundations of General Relativity are revisited, with particular attention to its gauge invariance, as a key to understanding the true nature of spacetime. Beyond the common image of spacetime as a deformable 'fabric' filling…