Related papers: Tuning the Cosmological Constant, Broken Scale Inv…
We propose that gravity be intrinsically quantum-mechanical, so that in the absence of quantum mechanics the geometry of the universe would be Minkowski. We show that in such a situation gravity does not require any independent quantization…
One hope to solve the cosmological constant problem is to identify a symmetry principle, based on which the cosmological constant can be reduced either to zero, or to a tiny value. Here, we note that requiring that the vacuum state is…
We perform a thorough study of the theoretical consistency of recently proposed, viable, quadratic modifications of gravity that are functions of the the Gauss-Bonnet invariant, regarding the stability of their perturbations around vacuum,…
A central aspect of the cosmological constant problem is to understand why vacuum energy does not gravitate. In order to account for this observation, while allowing for nontrivial dynamics of the quantum vacuum, we motivate a novel…
The cosmological constant problem is examined under the assumption that the extrinsic curvature of the space-time contributes to the vacuum. A compensation mechanism based on a variable cosmological term is proposed. Under a suitable…
We study cosmological perturbations for a ghost free massive gravity theory formulated with a dynamical extra metric that is needed to massive deform GR. In this formulation FRW background solutions fall in two branches. In the dynamics of…
We investigate the problems of ghosts and stability in the framework of asymptotical safe theory of gravity in the Minkowski background. Within one loop corrections, we obtain explicitly the constraints on the coupling parameters. Applying…
Just like the vector bosons in Abelian and non-Abelian gauge theories, gravitons can attain mass by spontaneous local symmetry breaking. The question is whether this can happen in a Lorentz-invariant way. We consider the use of four scalar…
Theories that spontaneously break Lorentz invariance also violate diffeomorphism symmetries, implying the existence of extra degrees of freedom and modifications of gravity. In the minimal model (``ghost condensation'') with only a single…
We set up a covariant renormalisation group equation on a foliated spacetime which preserves background diffeomorphism symmetry. As a first application of the new formalism, we study the effect of quantum fluctuations in Lorentz symmetry…
It is known that the cosmological constant can be dynamically tuned to an arbitrary small value in classes of scalar tensor theories. The trouble with such schemes is that effective gravity itself vanishes. We explore the possibility of…
A consistency condition of general relativity as an effective field theory in Minkowskian background uniquely fixes the value of the cosmological constant. In two-loop calculations, including the interaction of gravitons with matter fields,…
We re-consider the quantum mechanics of scale invariant potentials in two dimensions. The breaking of scale invariance by quantum effects is analyzed by the explicit evaluation of the phase shift and the self-adjoint extension method. We…
We consider a wide class of four-dimensional effective field theories in which gravity is coupled to multiple four-forms and their dual scalar fields, with membrane sources charged under the corresponding three-form potentials. Four-form…
We show how the scalar field, a candidate of quintessence, in a proposed model of the scalar-tensor theories of gravity provides a way to understand a small but nonzero cosmological constant as indicated by recent observations. A particular…
We study conformal gravity as an alternative theory of gravitation. For conformal gravity to be phenomenologically viable requires that the conformal symmetry is not manifest at the energy scales of the other known physical forces. Hence we…
Paying attention to conformal invariance as the invariance under local transformations of units of measure, we take a conformal invariant quantum field as a quantum matter theory in which one has the freedom to choose the values of units of…
Anthropic solutions to the cosmological constant problem require seemingly unnatural scalar field potentials with a very small slope or domain walls (branes) with a very small coupling to a four-form field. Here we introduce a class of…
We study the Hamiltonian structure of unimodular-like theories, where the cosmological constant (or other supposed constants of nature) are demoted from fixed parameters to classical constants of motion. No new local degrees of freedom are…
We investigate generally covariant theories which admit a Fierz-Pauli mass term for metric perturbations around an arbitrary curved background. For this we restore the general covariance of the Fierz-Pauli mass term by introducing four…