Related papers: Diffeomorphism Invariance Demands Conformal Anomal…
According to Belinsky, Khalatnikov and Lifshitz, gravity near a space-like singularity reduces to a set of decoupled one-dimensional mechanical models at each point in space. We point out that these models fall into a class of conformal…
We study vertex operators in 4D conformal field theory derived from quantized gravity, whose dynamics is governed by the Wess-Zumino action by Riegert and the Weyl action. Conformal symmetry is equal to diffeomorphism symmetry in the…
Conformal theories in a d dimensional spacetime may be expressed as manifestly conformal theories in a d+2 dimensional conformal space as first proposed by Dirac. The reduction to d dimensions goes via the d+1 dimensional hypercone in the…
We explore the nonperturbative renormalization group flow of Quantum Einstein Gravity (QEG) on an infinite dimensional theory space. We consider "conformally reduced" gravity where only fluctuations of the conformal factor are quantized and…
We argue that the presence of conformal anomalies in gravitational theories can lead to observable modifications to Einstein's equations via the induced anomalous effective actions, whose non-localities can overwhelm the smallness of the…
We study conformal gravity as an alternative theory of gravitation. For conformal gravity to be phenomenologically viable requires that the conformal symmetry is not manifest at the energy scales of the other known physical forces. Hence we…
When the electroweak action is rewritten in terms of SU(2) gauge invariant variables, the Higgs can be interpreted as a conformal metric factor. We show that asymptotic flatness of the metric is required to avoid a Gribov problem: without…
For D=4 theories of a single U(1) gauge field strength coupled to gravity and matters, we show that the electric-magnetic duality can be formulated as an invariance of the actions. The symmetry is associated with duality rotation acting…
Without a complete theory of quantum gravity, the question of how quantum fields and quantum particles behave in a superposition of spacetimes seems beyond the reach of theoretical and experimental investigations. Here we use an extension…
Effective field theories describing gravity coupled to matter are investigated, allowing for operators of arbitrary mass dimension. Terms violating local Lorentz and diffeomorphism invariance while preserving internal gauge symmetries are…
The new manifestation of conformal invariance for a massless scalar particle in a Riemannian spacetime of general relativity is found. Conformal transformations conserve the Hamiltonian and wave function in the Foldy-Wouthuysen…
For a field theory that is invariant under diffeomorphisms there is a subtle interplay between symmetries, conservation laws and the phase space of the theory. The natural language for describing these ideas is that of differential forms…
The dilaton action in 3+1 dimensions plays a crucial role in the proof of the a-theorem. This action arises using Wess-Zumino consistency conditions and crucially relies on the existence of the trace anomaly. Since there are no anomalies in…
We show that the action functional of the nonlinear sigma model with gravitino considered in a previous article [18] is invariant under rescaled conformal transformations, super Weyl transformations and diffeomorphisms. We give a careful…
We construct an explicit representation of the algebra of local diffeomorphisms of a manifold with realistic dimensions. This is achieved in the setting of a general approach to the (quantum) dynamics of a physical system which is…
Modular equations occur in number theory, but it is less known that such equations also occur in the study of deformation properties of quasiconformal mappings. The authors study two important plane quasiconformal distortion functions,…
The most usual procedure for deriving curvature corrections to effective actions for topological defects is subjected to a critical reappraisal. A logically unjustified step (leading to overdetermination) is identified and rectified, taking…
We consider the role of the diffeomorphism constraint in the quantization of lattice formulations of diffeomorphism invariant theories of connections. It has been argued that in working with abstract lattices, one automatically takes care…
Deformations of spacelike hypersurfaces in space-time play an important role in discussions of general covariance and slicing independence in gravitational theories. In a canonical formulation, they provide the geometrical meaning of gauge…
In this work, we study various properties of embedded hypersurfaces in $1+1+2$ decomposed spacetimes with a preferred spatial direction, denoted $e^{\mu}$, which are orthogonal to the fluid flow velocity of the spacetime and admit a proper…