Related papers: Gravity, Superselection Rules and Axions
We consider gravity coupled to a second metric in the strong coupling limit, where the second kinetic term is absent. This system belongs to the recently discussed class of models of "gravity with auxiliary fields" by Pani et al. We prove…
Treating the gravitational force on the same footing as the electroweak and strong forces, we present a quantum field theory of gravity based on spin and scaling gauge symmetries. A biframe spacetime is initiated to describe such a quantum…
Consistent coupling of quantum and classical degrees of freedom exists so long as there is both diffusion of the classical degrees of freedom and decoherence of the quantum system. In this paper, we derive the Newtonian limit of such…
This article sets out the framework of algebraic quantum field theory in curved spacetimes, based on the idea of local covariance. In this framework, a quantum field theory is modelled by a functor from a category of spacetimes to a…
General relativity describes the gravitational field geometrically and in a self-interacting way because it couples to all forms of energy, including its own. Both features make finding a quantum theory difficult, yet it is important in the…
General relativity is a background-independent theory of a dynamical classical spacetime geometry. Quantum theory is formulated in a classical spacetime, as an intrinsically probabilistic, contextual theory of non-classical, interfering…
We present a dynamical (composite) axion model where the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry arises automatically as a consequence of chirality and gauge symmetry. The Standard Model is simply extended by a confining and chiral $SU(5)$ gauge…
The physics of quantum gravity is discussed within the framework of topological quantum field theory. Some of the principles are illustrated with examples taken from theories in which space-time is three dimensional.
We propose a new version of the scalar Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) which would apply to any scalar field coupled to quantum gravity. For a single scalar it is given by the differential constraint $V''\leq…
Among solutions of the strong CP problem, the "invisible" axion in the narrow axion window is argued to be the remaining possibility among natural solutions on the smallness of $\bar{\theta}$. Related to the gravity spoil of global…
Four-dimensional (4D) simplicial quantum gravity coupled to both scalar fields (N_X) and gauge fields (N_A) has been studied using Monte-Carlo simulations. The matter dependence of the string susceptibility exponent gamma^{(4)} is…
I describe the treatment of gravity as a quantum effective field theory. This allows a natural separation of the (known) low energy quantum effects from the (unknown) high energy contributions. Within this framework, gravity is a well…
The peculiar value of $\theta$ is a challenge to the notion of an anthropic landscape. We briefly review the possibility that a suitable axion might arise from an anthropic requirement of dark matter. We then consider an alternative…
Five-vectors theory of gravity is proposed, which admits an arbitrary choice of the energy density reference level. This theory is formulated as the constraint theory, where the Lagrange multipliers turn out to be restricted to some class…
One of the many conceptual difficulties in the development of quantum gravity is the role of a background geometry for the structure of quantum field theory. To some extent the problem can be solved by the principle of local covariance. The…
The role of topology in elementary quantum physics is discussed in detail. It is argued that attributes of classical spatial topology emerge from properties of state vectors with suitably smooth time evolution. Equivalently, they emerge…
We promote the usual QCD $\theta$-parameter to a field and interpret it as the phase of the quark condensate, which becomes nontrivial when topological defects, vortices in our formulation, are induced in the quark condensate by the QCD…
We construct explicit models that solve the axion quality problem originating from quantum gravitational effects. The general strategy we employ is to supplement the Standard Model and its grand unified extensions by an anomaly-free axial…
We argue that the electromagnetic $\theta$-term is a physical parameter of the Standard Model coupled to gravity. Specifically, in the context of 4-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell theory we show that there exist Euclidean field configurations…
It is pointed out that the space noncommutativity parameters $theta^{\mu \nu}$ in noncommutative gauge theory can be considered as a set of superselection parameters, in analogy with the theta-angle in ordinary gauge theories. As such, they…