Related papers: Is Gravity the Weakest Force?
A new direction to understand gravity has recently been explored by considering classical gravity to be a derived interaction from an underlying theory. This underlying theory would involve new degrees of freedom at a deeper level and it…
A cosmic scalar field evolving very slowly in time can account for the observed dark energy of the Universe. Unlike a cosmological constant, an evolving scalar field also has local spatial gradients due to gravity. If the scalar field has a…
A scalar theory with a preferred reference frame is summarized. To test that theory in celestial mechanics, an "asymptotic" post-Newtonian (PN) scheme has been developed. This associates a conceptual family of self-gravitating systems with…
Quantum fields do not satisfy the pointwise energy conditions that are assumed in the original singularity theorems of Penrose and Hawking. Accordingly, semiclassical quantum gravity lies outside their scope. Although a number of…
The true nature of gravity is a remarkable open problem in Gravitation. Theoretical and observational motivations open the avenue of alternative theories of gravity. One possibility resorts to nonminimal couplings and non-metricity…
Scalar-tensor theories of gravity that embrace conformal coupling to the scalar curvature are the focal point of cosmology on discussions of inflation and late-time accelerating universe. Although there exists a stringent nucleo-synthesis…
In order to clarify why the zero-point energy associated with the vacuum fluctuations cannot be a candidate for the dark energy in the universe, a comparison with the Casimir effect is analyzed in some detail. A principle of epistemology is…
A light scalar field, minimally or not-minimally coupled to the metric field, is a well-defined candidate for the dark energy, overcoming the coincidence problem intrinsic to the cosmological constant and avoiding the difficulties of…
In a recent paper [arXiv:0904.2904] using a conjecture it is shown how one can calculate the effect of a weak stationary gravitational field on vacuum energy in the context of Casimir effect in an external gravitational field treated in 1+3…
We unveil a remarkable interplay between rigid field theories (RFTs), charge-to-mass ratios $\gamma$ and scalar curvature divergences $\mathsf{R}_{\rm div}$ in the vector multiplet moduli space of 4d ${\cal N}=2$ supergravities, obtained…
We study the scintillation produced by time-varying gravitational fields within scalar-tensor theories of gravity. The problem is treated in the geometrical optics approximation for a very distant light source emitting quasi plane…
As shown previously, quantum mechanics directly violates the weak equivalence principle in general and in all dimensions, and thus indirectly violates the strong equivalence principle in all dimensions. The present paper shows that quantum…
We argue that theories in which supersymmetry breaking originates at low energies often contain scalar particles that mediate coherent gravitational strength forces at distances less than a cm. We estimate the strength and range of these…
Effective theories of a scalar $\phi$ invariant under the internal \textit{galileon symmetry} $\phi\to\phi+b_\mu x^\mu$ have been extensively studied due to their special theoretical and phenomenological properties. In this paper, we…
Most of the approaches to the construction of a theory of quantum gravity share some principles which do not have specific experimental support up to date. Two of these principles are relevant for our discussion: (i) the gravitational field…
Does gravity care about electric charge? Precision tests of the weak equivalence principle achieve remarkable sensitivity but deliberately minimize electric charge on test masses, leaving this fundamental question experimentally open. We…
We investigate the dynamics of gravity coupled to a scalar field using a non-canonical form of the kinetic term. It is shown that its singular point represents an attractor for classical solutions and the stationary value of the field may…
In order to explain weak gravitation in our 4-dimensional universe, a 6-dimensional model with a small extra 2D sphere is proposed. The traceless energy-momentum tensor is quite naturally appeared in our 6-dimensional model. The warp factor…
In this note we give a summary of [arXiv:2401.14449] in which we proposed a proof of the weak gravity conjecture in perturbative string theory. While the WGC is well established, checked in many examples, and many of the ingredients we use…
The dS swampland conjecture $|\nabla V|/V \geq c$, where $c$ is presumed to be a positive constant of order unity, implies that the dark energy density of our Universe can not be a cosmological constant, but mostly the potential energy of…