Related papers: On the action principle as a guide to substantive …
Famously, Klein and Einstein were embroiled in an epistolary dispute over whether General Relativity has any physically meaningful conserved quantities. In this paper, we explore the consequences of Noether's second theorem for this debate,…
The issue of implementing the principle of general relativity in Einstein equations has been widely discussed, since Kretschmann's well-known criticism stated that general covariance of the Einstein equations is not suffice to express the…
The notion of diffeomorphism invariance and general covariance are conceptually delicate issues for the field equations and the actions. A thorough study on the original Einstein field equation and its two modifications by Einstein is…
An action principle of singular hypersurfaces in general relativity and scalar-tensor type theories of gravity in the Einstein frame is presented without assuming any symmetry. The action principle is manifestly doubly covariant in the…
It is shown that when the Einstein-Hilbert Lagrangian is considered without any non-covariant modifications or change of variables, its Hamiltonian formulation leads to results consistent with principles of General Relativity. The…
Einstein considered general covariance to characterize the novelty of his General Theory of Relativity (GTR), but Kretschmann thought it merely a formal feature that any theory could have. The claim that GTR is "already parametrized"…
General Relativity can be reformulated as a diffeomorphism invariant SU(2) gauge theory. A new action principle for this "pure connection" formulation of GR is described.
A crucial step in the history of General Relativity was Einstein's adoption of the principle of general covariance which demands a coordinate independent formulation for our spacetime theories. General covariance helps us to disentangle a…
The field equations of general relativity can be derived from the Einstein action, which is quadratic in connection coefficients, rather than the standard action involving the Gibbons-Hawking-York term and counterterm. We show that it is…
The covariance group for general relativity, the diffeomorphisms, is replaced by a group of coordinate transformations which contains the diffeomorphisms as a proper subgroup. The larger group is defined by the assumption that all observers…
Canonical vacuum gravity is expressed in generally-covariant form in order that spacetime diffeomorphisms be represented within its equal-time phase space. In accordance with the principle of general covariance, the time mapping ${\T}:…
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…
This note is to bring to the reader's attention the fact that general relativity and quantum mechanics differ from each other in one main aspect. General relativity is based on the diffeomorphism covariant formulation of the laws of physics…
It is widely accepted that the fundamental geometrical law of nature should follow from an action principle. The particular subset of transformations of a system's dynamical variables that maintain the form of the action principle comprises…
Classically general covariance is found from the idea that a vector is a physical quantity which exists independently of choice of coordinate system and is unchanged by a change of coordinate system. It is often assumed that there exists…
A deformation of the algebra of diffeomorphisms is constructed for canonically deformed spaces with constant deformation parameter theta. The algebraic relations remain the same, whereas the comultiplication rule (Leibniz rule) is different…
We propose a lattice counterpart of diffeomorphism symmetry in the continuum. A functional integral for quantum gravity is regularized on a discrete set of space-time points, with fermionic or bosonic lattice fields. When the space-time…
Although with great successes in explaining phenomena and natural behaviour involving the Universe or a part thereof, the General Theory of Relativity is far from a complete theory. Focusing on its extension within the framework of scalar…
Diffeomorphism invariance is often considered to be a hallmark of the theory of general relativity (GR). But closer analysis reveals that this cannot be what makes GR distinctive. The concept of diffeomorphism invariance can be defined in…
General covariance is a crucial notion in the study of field theories in curved spacetime. A field theory defined with respect to a semi-Riemannian metric is generally covariant if two metrics which are related by a diffeomorphism produce…