Related papers: Background Fields and Gravity
The partition function of 2+1 Chern-Simons Witten topological gravity has an attractive interpretation in terms of the unbroken and broken phases of gravity. We make this physical interpretation manifest using the background field method.
Classical field theory is insensitive to the split of the field into a background configuration and a dynamical perturbation. In gauge theories, the situation is complicated by the fact that a covariant (w.r.t. the background field) gauge…
Fundamental constants are a cornerstone of our physical laws. Any constant varying in space and/or time would reflect the existence of an almost massless field that couples to matter. This will induce a violation of the universality of free…
We discuss the fate of diffeomorphism symmetry in discrete gravity. Diffeomorphism symmetry is typically broken by the discretization. This has repercussions for the observable content and the canonical formulation of the theory. It might…
We analyze the problem of general covariance for quantum gravity theories in the background field formalism with respect to gauge fixing procedure. We prove that the background effective action is not invariant under general coordinate…
The presence of a constant background antisymmetric tensor for open strings or D-branes forces the space-time coordinates to be noncommutative. An immediate consequence of this is that all fields get complexified. By applying this idea to…
We show that in a spontaneously broken effective gauge field theory, quantized in a general background $R_\xi$-gauge, also the background fields undergo a non-linear (albeit background-gauge invariant) field redefinition induced by…
We give a short review on the status of research on the theoretical foundations of $f(T)$ gravity theories. We discuss recent results on perturbative and non-perturbative approaches, causality and degrees of freedom, and discuss future…
The behavior of fundamental fields in strong gravity or nontrivial environments is important for our understanding of nature. This problem has interesting applications in the context of dark matter, of dark energy physics or of quantum…
Models of gravity in warped extra dimensions enjoy invariance under diffeomorphism. We derive the nonlinear transformation rules for the metric perturbations in the unitary gauge. As an off-shell symmetry, the main consequence of…
A gravitational field can be defined in terms of a moving frame, which when made noncommutative yields a preferred basis for a differential calculus. It is conjectured that to a linear perturbation of the commutation relations which define…
I discuss various aspects of background independence in the context of string theory, for which so far we have no manifestly background independent formulation. After reviewing the role of background independence in classical Einstein…
Inertia is defined axiomatically. The gravitational field is caused by the flow of intergalactic masses. Origin of space and time are connected with fields. The cosmos is bounded by inertia and gravitation, which is the sequence of…
We discuss field theories appearing as a result of applying field transformations with derivatives (differential field transformations, DFT) to a known theory. We begin with some simple examples of DFTs to see the basic properties of the…
We present a method of constructing perturbative equations of motion for the geometric background of any given tensorial field theory. Requiring invariance of the gravitational dynamics under spacetime diffeomorphisms leads to a PDE system…
If general relativity is an emergent phenomenon, there may be small violations of diffeomorphism invariance. We propose a phenomenology of perturbatively small violations of general relativity by the inclusion of terms which break general…
Integration of Kirillov form on a coadjoint orbit of Virasoro algebra yields the coupling of a background field to Polyakov's two dimensional quantum gravity. This background field is used to be called the diffeomorphism field. Einstein's…
We consider diffeomorphism violation, which is parameterized by nondynamical background fields of the gravitational Standard-Model Extension (SME), and study its effects on the time evolution of the Universe. Our goal is to identify…
Among the many worthwhile quantum experiments taking advantage of long baselines in space, this white paper points to the far-reaching significance of gravitational decoherence experiments. These experiments can provide clues as to whether…
The notion of diffeomorphism invariance and general covariance are conceptually delicate issues for the field equations and the actions. A thorough study on the original Einstein field equation and its two modifications by Einstein is…