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We derive Einstein's equations from a linear theory in flat space-time using free-field gauge invariance and universal coupling. The gravitational potential can be either covariant or contravariant and of almost any density weight. We adapt…
Summary of abstract Field theory models including gauge theories with SSB are presented where the energy density of the true vacuum state (TVS) is zero without fine tuning. The above models are constructed in the gravitational theory where…
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…
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…
We consider a theory of scalars minimally coupled to an auxiliary background metric. The theory is generally covariant and subject to the constraint of vanishing energy-momentum tensor. Eliminating the auxiliary metric leads to a…
We give a detailed account of the cyclic $L_\infty$-algebra formulation of general relativity with cosmological constant in the Einstein-Cartan-Palatini formalism on spacetimes of arbitrary dimension and signature, which encompasses all…
In a geometrical approach to gravity the metric and the (gravitational) connection can be independent and one deals with metric-affine theories. We construct the most general action of metric-affine effective field theories, including a…
In light of recent progress in ghost-free theories of massive gravity and multi-gravity, we reconsider the problem of constructing a ghost-free theory of an interacting spin-2 field charged under a U(1) gauge symmetry. Our starting point is…
The quantization of gauge-affine gravity within the superfiber bundle formalism is proposed. By introducing an even pseudotensorial 1-superform over a principal superfibre bundle with superconnection, we obtain the geometrical…
We present a covariant nonlinear completion of the Fierz-Pauli (FP) mass term for the graviton. The starting observation is that the FP mass is immediately obtained by expanding the cosmological constant term, i.e. the determinant of the…
New classes of modified teleparallel theories of gravity are introduced. The action of this theory is constructed to be a function of the irreducible parts of torsion $f(T_{\rm ax},T_{\rm ten},T_{\rm vec})$, where $T_{\rm ax},T_{\rm ten}$…
We complement Weinberg's no go theorem on the cosmological constant problem in quantum gravity by generalizing it to the case of a scale-invariant theory. Our analysis makes use of the effective action and the BRST symmetry in a manifestly…
We test ideas of the recently proposed first-order thermodynamics of scalar-tensor gravity using an exact geometry sourced by a conformally coupled scalar field. We report a non-monotonic behaviour of the effective ``temperature of…
A general paradigm for describing classical (and semiclassical) gravity is presented. This approach brings to the centre-stage a holographic relationship between the bulk and surface terms in a general class of action functionals and…
We describe a class of unified theories of electromagnetism and gravity. The Lagrangian is of the BF type, with a potential for the B-field, the gauge group is U(2) (complexified). Given a choice of the potential function the theory is a…
The Einstein-Hilbert action has a bulk term and a surface term (which arises from integrating a four divergence). I show that one can obtain Einstein's equations from the surface term alone. This leads to: (i) a novel, completely self…
We study the general class of gravitational field theories constructed on the basis of scale invariance (and therefore absence of any mass parameters) and invariance under transverse diffeomorphisms (TDiff), which are the 4-volume…
We naturally extend the theory of gravity with a conformally coupled scalar field by only requiring conformal invariance of the scalar field equation of motion and not of the action. The classically extended theory incorporates a…
We classify the metric-affine theories of gravitation, in which the metric and the connections are treated as independent variables, by use of several constraints on the connections. Assuming the Einstein-Hilbert action, we find that the…
Gravity stands out among the fundamental interactions because of its apparent incompatibility with having a quantum description. Moreover, thermodynamic aspects of gravitation theory appears as puzzling features of some classical solutions…