Related papers: BV-equivalence between triadic gravity and BF theo…
The present paper proposes a new explanation for the 3-dimensional Einstein general theory of relativity which is free of contradictions and consistent with usual 4-dimensional physics. We discuss the property of the new gravity theory with…
General Relativity in three or more dimensions can be obtained by taking the limit $\omega\rightarrow\infty$ in the Brans-Dicke theory. In two dimensions General Relativity is an unacceptable theory. We show that the two-dimensional closest…
An extension of the notion of classical equivalence of equivalence in the Batalin--(Fradkin)--Vilkovisky (BV) and (BFV) framework for local Lagrangian field theory on manifolds possibly with boundary is discussed. Equivalence is phrased in…
The different roles and natures of spacetime appearing in a quantum field theory and in classical physics are analyzed implying that a quantum theory of gravitation is not necessarily a quantum theory of curved spacetime. Developing an…
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…
In recent years, it has been rather fashionable to talk about geometric trinity of gravity. The main idea is that one can formally present the gravity equations in different terms, those of either torsion or nonmetricity instead of…
We generalize the BV formalism for the physical theories on supermanifolds with graded symmetry algebras realized off-shell and on-shell. An application of such generalization to supersymmetric theories allows us to formulate the new…
We construct a topological field theory which, on the one hand, generalizes BF theories in that there is non-trivial coupling to `topological matter fields'; and, on the other, generalizes the three-dimensional model of Carlip and Gegenberg…
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…
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.…
Three different methods to quantize the spherically symmetric sector of electromagnetism are presented: First, it is shown that this sector is equivalent to Abelian BF-theory in four spacetime dimensions with suitable boundary conditions.…
The structure of the divergences for transverse theories of gravity is studied to one-loop order. These theories are invariant only under those diffeomorphisms that enjoy unit Jacobian determinant (TDiff), so that the determinant of the…
In this paper we discuss topological BF theories in 3 and 4 dimensions. Observables are associated to ordinary knots and links (in 3 dimensions) and to 2-knots (in 4 dimensions). The vacuum expectation values of such observables give a wide…
Quadratic gravity in two dimensions can be formulated as a Background Field (BF) theory plus an interaction term which is polynomial in both, the gauge and Background fields. This formulation is similar to the one given by Freidel and…
We prove the renormalizability of quantum gravity near two dimensions. The successful strategy is to keep the volume preserving diffeomorphism as the manifest symmetry of the theory. The general covariance is recovered by further imposing…
Diffeomorphism invariance is often considered to be a hallmark of the theory of general relativity (GR). But closer analysis reveals that this cannot be what makes GR distinctive. The concept of diffeomorphism invariance can be defined in…
Theories of gravity invariant under those diffeomorphisms generated by transverse vectors, $\pd_\m\xi^\m=0$ are considered. Such theories are dubbed transverse, and differ from General Relativity in that the determinant of the metric, $g$,…
Diffeomorphism invariance is a feature that gets sometimes highlighted as something with profound implications in the physics of spacetime. Moreover, it is often wrongly associated exclusively with General Relativity. The fact that…
We explore the hypothesis that the set of symmetries enjoyed by the theory that describes gravity is not the full group of diffeomorphisms Diff(M), as in General Relativity, but a maximal subgroup of it, TransverseDiff(M), with its elements…
The generalised-geometric formulation of 10-dimensional supergravity suggests a particular simple "limit", which results in a theory whose only dynamical degrees of freedom are the dilaton and the dilatino. The theory is still invariant…