Related papers: Variations on the Seventh Route to Relativity
We study gravity coupled to scalar and fermion fields in the Einstein-Cartan framework. We discuss the most general form of the action that contains terms of mass dimension not bigger than four, leaving out only contributions quadratic in…
In the MacDowell-Mansouri formulation of general relativity, the spin connection and coframe variables are incorporated into a single Lie algebra-valued connection called the MacDowell-Mansouri connection, $\omega$. From the curvature form…
The configuration space of general relativity is superspace - the space of all Riemannian 3-metrics modulo diffeomorphisms. However, it has been argued that the configuration space for gravity should be conformal superspace - the space of…
Starting from the original Einstein action, sometimes called the Gamma squared action, we propose a new setup to formulate modified theories of gravity. This can yield a theory with second order field equations similar to those found in…
A new approach to the dynamics of the universe based on work by O Murchadha, Foster, Anderson and the author is presented. The only kinematics presupposed is the spatial geometry needed to define configuration spaces in purely relational…
We propose a gauge theory of gravitation. The gauge potential is a connection of the Super SL(2,C) group. A MacDowell-Mansouri type of action is proposed where the action is quadratic in the Super SL(2,C) curvature and depends purely on…
The metric-affine variational principle is applied to generate teleparallel and symmetric teleparallel theories of gravity. From the latter is discovered an exceptional class which is consistent with a vanishing affine connection. Based on…
It is well known that the Einstein-Hilbert action in two dimensions is topological and yields an identically vanishing Einstein tensor. Consequently one is faced with difficulties when formulating a non-trivial gravity model. We present a…
We consider the conformal group of a space of dim n=p+q, with SO(p,q) metric. The quotient of this group by its homogeneous Weyl subgroup gives a principal fiber bundle with 2n-dim base manifold and Weyl fibers. The Cartan generalization to…
In Loop Quantum Gravity the classical point of departure is the Einstein-Hilbert action modified by the addition of the so-called Holst term. Classically, this term does not affect the equations of motion, but it induces a well-known…
We revise the classical continuum formulation behind the Spin Foam approach to the quantization of gravity. Based on the recent applications of the current EPRL-FK model beyond triangulations, we identify the tension with the implementation…
We put forward the idea that in addition to diffeomorphism invariance of general relativity (GR) the gravitational interaction is invariant under arbitrary scale-deformations of the metric field. In addition, we assume that the scaling…
A argument is described for how deformed or doubly special relativity may arise in the semiclassical limit of a quantum theory of gravity. We consider a generic quantum theory of gravity coupled to matter, from which we use only the…
We provide a new extension of general relativity (GR) which has the remarkable property of being more constrained than GR plus a cosmological constant, having one less free parameter. This is implemented by allowing the cosmological…
In this article, we consider a second Problem of Time Facet. This started life as Wheeler's Thin Sandwich Problem, within the narrow context of 1) GR-as-Geometrodynamics, in particular its momentum constraint. 2) A Lagrangian variables…
We give a derivation of general relativity and the gauge principle that is novel in presupposing neither spacetime nor the relativity principle. We consider a class of actions defined on superspace with two key properties. The first is…
We study theories of the "General Relativity + Yang-Mills" type in 4d spacetime with cosmological constant, focusing on formulations where the basic variables are connections and curvatures (but no metric). We present a new Lagrangian for…
In this thesis, I investigate how to construct a self-consistent model of deformed general relativity using canonical methods and metric variables. The specific deformation of general covariance is predicted by some studies into loop…
A couple of technicalities in the paper M. Bojowald, G. Paily, Phys. Rev. D 87, 044044 (2013) are discussed. The explicit formula given there for the function entering the modified hypersurface-deformed algebra, which presumably originates…
A version of the cosmological perturbation theory in general relativity (GR) is developed, where the cosmological scale factor is identified with spatial averaging of the metric determinant logarithm and the cosmic evolution acquires the…