Related papers: Gravity, Superselection Rules and Axions
The axion solution to the strong CP problem is delicately sensitive to Peccei-Quinn breaking contributions that are misaligned with respect to QCD instantons. Heavy QCD axion models are appealing because they avoid this so-called "quality…
In this survey, we review some of the low energy quantum predictions of General Relativity which are independent of details of the yet unknown high-energy completion of the gravitational interaction. Such predictions can be extracted using…
We provide a mechanism by which, from a background independent model with no quantum mechanics, quantum theory arises in the same limit in which spatial properties appear. Starting with an arbitrary abstract graph as the microscopic model…
Quadratic gravity presents us with a renormalizable, asymptotically free theory of quantum gravity. When its couplings grow strong at some scale, as in QCD, then this strong scale sets the Planck mass. QCD has a gluon that does not appear…
A global $U(1)_\text{PQ}$ symmetry is protected from gravitational effects in the s-confining $SU(N)^k$ product group theory with $A+4Q +N\overline{Q}$ matter. If the $SU(4)$ family symmetry is gauged and an appropriate tree-level…
The problem of extracting the work from a quantum-thermodynamic system driven by slowly varying external parameters is discussed. It is shown that there naturally emerges a gauge-theoretic structure. The field strength identically vanishes…
The effort to discover a quantum theory of gravity is motivated by the need to reconcile the incompatibility between quantum theory and general relativity. Here, we present an alternative approach by constructing a consistent theory of…
The self-consistent matter coupling is found in a broad class of minimally modified gravity theories which was discovered recently. All constraints in the theories remain first class and thus a graviton has only 2 local degrees of freedom.…
It was conjectured thirty years ago that gravity could arise from the entropic re-arrangement of information. In this paper, we offer a set of microscopic quantum models which realize this idea in detail. In particular, we suggest a simple…
The QED(0+1) model describing a quantum mechanical particle on a circle with minimal electromagnetic interaction and with a potential -M cos(phi - theta_M), which mimics the massive Schwinger model, is discussed as a prototype of mechanisms…
By identifying the recently introduced Barbero-Immirzi field with the QCD axion, the strong CP problem can be solved through the Peccei-Quinn mechanism. A specific energy scale for the Peccei-Quinn symmetry breaking is naturally predicted…
A discussion of the field content of quadratic higher-derivative gravitation is presented, together with a new example of a massless spin-two field consistently coupled to gravity. The full quadratic gravity theory is shown to be equivalent…
We showed that the principle of nongravitating vacuum energy, when formulated in the first order formalism, solves the cosmological constant problem. The most appealing formulation of the theory displays a local symmetry associated with the…
The effective field theory of quantum gravity generically predicts non-locality to be present in the effective action, which results from the low-energy propagation of gravitons and massless matter. Working to second order in gravitational…
We recall a classical theory of torsion gravity with an asymmetric metric, sourced by a Nambu-Goto + Kalb-Ramond string . We explain why this is a significant gravitational theory, and in what sense classical general relativity is an…
It is argued that quantum states of geometry, like those of particles, should be coherent on light cones of any size. An exact classical solution, the gravitational shock wave of a relativistic point particle, is used to estimate…
We analyze the strong CP problem and the implications for axion physics in the context of $U_1$ vector leptoquark models, recently put forward as an elegant solution to the hints of lepton flavor universality violation in B-meson decays. It…
Four-dimensional gravity admits many equivalent formulations - metric, Einstein-Cartan, teleparallel, McDowell-Mansouri, among others - each offering distinct advantages, particularly, in view of quantization. We propose a new formulation…
In this model, the gravity term in the Lagrangean comes from spontaneous symmetry breaking of an additional scalar quadruplet field $\Upsilon$. The resulting gravitational field is approximate to one of the models of coframe gravity with…
In the present work we revisit a model consisting of a scalar field with a quartic self-interaction potential non-minimally (conformally) coupled to gravity [1]. When the scalar field vacuum is in a broken symmetry state, an effective…