Related papers: The Status of Modern Five-Dimensional Gravity
General relativity is a background-independent theory of a dynamical classical spacetime geometry. Quantum theory is formulated in a classical spacetime, as an intrinsically probabilistic, contextual theory of non-classical, interfering…
Consider the interior of a black hole or the very early universe: matter is so densely localized that neither the effects of gravity nor those of quantum theory can be ignored. But this entails that neither general relativity nor quantum…
(from the talk:) I shall here speak on gravity in (1+1)-dimensional space-time --- lineal gravity. The purpose of studying lower dimensional theories, and specifically lower dimensional gravity, is to gain insight into difficult…
The implications of string theory for understanding the dimension of uncompactified spacetime are investigated. Using recent ideas in string cosmology, a new model is proposed to explain why three spatial dimensions grew large. Unlike the…
We consider the formulation of entropic gravity in two spacetime dimensions. The usual gravitational force law is derived even in the absence of area, as normally required by the holographic principle. A special feature of this perspective…
Observational evidence for the existence of dark energy is strong. Here we suggest a model which is based on a modified gravitational theory in 5D and interpret the 5th dimension as a manifestation of dark energy in the 4D observable…
The possibility that spacetime is extended beyond the familiar 3+1-dimensions has intrigued physicists for a century. Indeed, the consequences of a dimensionally richer spacetime would be profound. Recently, new theories with higher…
Various attempts to go beyond the theory of General Relativity start from the assumption that spacetime is not a 4-dimensional but rather a higher-dimensional manifold. Among others, braneworld scenarios postulate that the spacetime we…
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…
Physics invites the idea that space contains energy whose gravitational effect approximates that of Einstein's cosmological constant, Lambda; nowadays the concept is termed dark energy or quintessence. Physics also suggests the dark energy…
The vacuum of quantum fields contains correlated fluctuations. When restricted to one side of a surface these have a huge entropy of entanglement that scales with the surface area. If UV physics renders this entropy finite, then a…
We show that that four dimensional conformal gravity plus a simple Neumann boundary condition can be used to get the semiclassical (or tree level) wavefunction of the universe of four dimensional asymptotically de-Sitter or Euclidean…
We review the topic of 4D Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity, which has been the subject of considerable interest over the past two years. Our review begins with a general introduction to Lovelock's theorem, and the subject of Gauss-Bonnet terms…
As is well known, the universally accepted theory as quantum gravity (QG) doesn't exist. One of the main reasons for that is that quantized general relativity is perturbatively nonrenormalizable. But there are several theories whose…
We propose a topological Chern-Simons term in D=5 dimensions coupled to Einstein Hilbert theory. Hartree approximation for topological Lagrangian and the Chern-Simons term in D=3 is considered. An effective model of Quantum Gravity in D=5…
We discuss some fundamental issues underlying gravitational physics and point out some of the main shortcomings of Einstein's General Relativity. In particular, after taking into account the role of the two main objects of relativistic…
Recently, a topological field theory of membrane-matter coupled to BF theory in arbitrary spacetime dimensions was proposed [1]. In this paper, we discuss various aspects of the four-dimensional theory. Firstly, we study classical solutions…
The issues of quintessence and cosmic acceleration can be discussed in the framework of higher order theories of gravity. We can define effective pressure and energy density directly connected to the Ricci scalar of curvature of a generic…
Although general relativity is a predictively successful theory, it treats matter as classical rather than as quantum. For this reason, it will have to be replaced by a more fundamental quantum theory of gravity. Attempts to formulate a…
A string theory in $3$ euclidean spacetime dimensions is found to describe the semiclassical behavior of a certain exact physical state of quantum general relativity in $4$ dimensions. Both the worldsheet and the three dimensional metric…