Related papers: Super-Planckian Spatial Field Variations and Quant…
That preferred-frame theory accounts for special relativity and reduces to it if the gravitation field cancels. Starting from an interpretation of gravity as a pressure force, it is based on just one scalar field. This scalar gives the…
We study the vacuum polarization of a massive scalar field $\phi$ with arbitrary coupling to gravity in pointlike global monopole spacetime. Using Schwinger-DeWitt proper time formalism, we calculate the vacuum expectation value…
We explore the notion of approximate global symmetries in quantum field theory and quantum gravity. We show that a variety of conjectures about quantum gravity, including the weak gravity conjecture, the distance conjecture, and the…
This paper explores the conditions under which modified gravitational theories admit the positive mass. Following Witten's spinor argument, it is argued that a single condition should be imposed upon a gauge connection in the…
We consider asymptotically anti de Sitter gravity coupled to a scalar field with mass slightly above the Breitenlohner-Freedman bound. This theory admits a large class of consistent boundary conditions characterized by an arbitrary function…
We consider a long range scalar force that mainly couples to dark matter and unstable Standard Model states, like the muon, with tiny strength. Probing this type of force would present a challenge to observations. We point out that the…
We argue that the exact degeneracy of vacua in N=1 supergravity can shed light on the smallness of the cosmological constant. The presence of such vacua, which are degenerate to very high accuracy, may also result in small values of the…
A set of diverse but mutually consistent results obtained in different settings has spawned a new view of loop quantum gravity and its physical implications, based on the interplay of operator calculations and effective theory: Quantum…
Relativistic field theories with a power law decay in $r^{-k}$ at spatial infinity generically possess an infinite number of conserved quantities because of Lorentz invariance. Most of these are not related in any obvious way to symmetry…
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…
The Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) bounds the mass of a particle by its charge. It is expected that this bound can not be below the ultraviolet cut-off scale of the effective theory. Recently, an extension of the WGC was proposed in the…
Numerical simulations are performed of a test scalar field in a spacetime undergoing gravitational collapse. The behavior of the scalar field near the singularity is examined and implications for generic singularities are discussed. In…
Recently the global variation of the Planck mass in the General Relativistic Einstein-Hilbert action was proposed as a self-tuning mechanism of the cosmological constant preventing vacuum energy from freely gravitating. We show that this…
A satisfactory theory of quantum gravity may necessitate a drastic modification of our perception of space-time, by giving it a foamy structure at distances comparable to the Planck length. It is argued in this essay that the experimental…
Scalar-tensor theories of gravity modify General Relativity by introducing a scalar field that couples non-minimally to the metric tensor, while satisfying the weak-equivalence principle. These theories are interesting because they have the…
We investigate cosmological models described by a scalar field with an exponential potential, and apply the stochastic formalism, which allows us to study how quantum field fluctuations give rise to stochastic noise. This modifies the…
Small violations of spacetime symmetries have recently been identified as promising Planck-scale signals. This talk reviews how such violations can arise in various approaches to quantum gravity, how the emergent low-energy effects can be…
Gravitational wave observations can provide unprecedented insight into the fundamental nature of gravity and allow for novel tests of modifications to General Relativity. One proposed modification suggests that gravity may undergo a phase…
We study the Fock quantization of scalar fields in (generically) time dependent scenarios, focusing on the case in which the field propagation occurs in --either a background or effective-- spacetime with spatial sections of flat compact…
In this note we consider whether there could be Swampland constraints associated to the presence of fermions in the theory. We propose that any fermion must couple to an infinite tower of states, and that the mass scale of this tower, in…