Related papers: Diffeomorphism Invariance and Background Independe…
We consider a class of Lorentz-violating theories of gravity involving a timelike unit vector field (the aether) coupled to a metric, two examples being Einstein-aether theory and Ho\v{r}ava gravity. The action always includes the Ricci…
Explicit breaking of diffeomorphism symmetry with nondynamical background fields in gravitational theories can lead to inconsistencies between the equations of motion and the underlying pseudo-Riemannian geometry. These theories produce a…
Integration of Kirillov form on a coadjoint orbit of Virasoro algebra yields the coupling of a background field to Polyakov's two dimensional quantum gravity. This background field is used to be called the diffeomorphism field. Einstein's…
A brief recap is given of issues that can occur when fixed nondynamical backgrounds that explicitly break diffeomorphism invariance are included in gravity theories. Implications for the Standard-Model Extension (SME) are summarized,…
Not only in physical string theories, but also in some highly simplified situations, background independence has been difficult to understand. It is argued that the ``holomorphic anomaly'' of Bershadsky, Cecotti, Ooguri, and Vafa gives a…
General relativity is a covariant theory of two transverse, traceless graviton degrees of freedom. According to a theorem of Hojman, Kuchar, and Teitelboim, modifications of general relativity must either introduce new degrees of freedom or…
In the literature on $f(T)$ gravity, the status of local Lorentz invariance and the number of physical degrees of freedom have been controversial issues. Relying on a detailed Hamiltonian analysis, we show that there are several scenarios…
The application of quantum theory to gravity is beset with many technical and conceptual problems. After a short tour d'horizon of recent attempts to master those problems by the introduction of new approaches, we show that the aim, a…
A theory of special inconstancy, in which some fundamental physical constants such as the fine-structure and gravitational constants may vary, is proposed in pregeometry. In the special theory of inconstancy, the \alpha-G relation of…
We study theories breaking diffeomorphism (Diff) invariance down to the subgroup of transverse diffeomorphisms (TDiff), consisting of multiple scalar fields in a cosmological background. In particular, we focus on models involving a field…
The invariant is one of central topics in science, technology and engineering. The differential invariant is essential in understanding or describing some important phenomena or procedures in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology or…
We review and discuss the role of diffeomorphism symmetry in quantum gravity models. Such models often involve a discretization of the space-time manifold as a regularization method. Generically this leads to a breaking of the symmetries to…
Statistical independence is a notion ubiquitous in various fields such as in statistics, probability, number theory and physics. We establish the stability of independence for any pair of random variables by their corresponding Brockwell…
Model of noncommutative gravity is constructed by means of Fedosov deformation quantization of endomorphism bundle. The fields describing noncommutativity -- symplectic form and symplectic connection -- are dynamical, and the resulting…
In a previous work we showed that, in a suitable setting, one can use diffeomorphism invariance in order to derive gravitational field equations from boundary terms of the gravitational action. Standing by our results we reply here to a…
Using the background-metric independence for the traceless mode as well as the conformal mode, 4D quantum gravity is described as a quantum field theory defined on a non-dynamical background-metric. The measure then induces an action with 4…
This paper is intended to study diffeomorphism invariance and diffeomorphism generation in the modified theory of gravity proposed by Horava. Firstly, we demonstrate that the theory does not lose diffeomorphism invariance due to the…
Dynamical systems of a new kind are described, which are motivated by the problem of constructing diffeomorphism invariant quantum theories. These are based on the extremization of a non-local and non-additive quantity that we call the…
Looking for ideas for a fundamental physics that could almost work by itself, not making but mild assumptions, we are inspired by the earlier work by Astri Kleppe and myself. We showed that assuming diffeomorphism symmetry in addition to…
To guarantee the stability of the cosmological constant sector against radiative corrections coming from quantum matter fields, one of the most natural ingredients to invoke is the symmetry under scale transformations of the gravitational…