Related papers: Background Geometry in Gauge Gravitation Theory
In my lectures I will deal with three seemingly unrelated problems: i) to what extent is general relativity exceptional among metric gravity theories? ii) is it possible to define gravitational energy density applying field-theory approach…
Toroidal backgrounds for bosonic strings are used to understand target space duality as a symmetry of string field theory and to study explicitly issues in background independence. Our starting point is the notion that the string field…
We write the field equations of torsion gravity theories and the N\oe ther identity they obey directly in terms of metric and contorsion tensor components expressed with respect to natural coordinates, i.e. without using vierbien but…
We review the construction of Lagrangians for higher spin fields of mixed symmetry in the framework of graded geometry. The main advantage of the graded formalism in this context is that it provides universal expressions, in the sense that…
The geometric structure of theories with gauge fields of spins two and higher should involve a higher spin generalisation of Riemannian geometry. Such geometries are discussed and the case of $W_\infty$-gravity is analysed in detail. While…
We propose a Lorentz-covariant Yang-Mills spin-gauge theory, where the function valued Dirac matrices play the role of a non-scalar Higgs-field. As symmetry group we choose $SU(2) \times U(1)$. After symmetry breaking a non-scalar…
We discuss linear perturbations of the most general class of teleparallel spacetimes with cosmological symmetry, and perform a decomposition of these perturbations into irreducible components. We then study their behavior under gauge…
We describe the definition and the role background independence and the closely related notion of diffeomorphism invariance play in modern string theory. These important concepts are transformed by a new understanding of gauge redundancies…
I discuss various aspects of background independence in the context of string theory, for which so far we have no manifestly background independent formulation. After reviewing the role of background independence in classical Einstein…
We investigate the problems of consistency and causality for the equations of motion describing massive spin two field in external gravitational and massless scalar dilaton fields in arbitrary spacetime dimension. From the field theoretical…
Some spontaneously broken gauge theories with left couplings to fermions, like the abelian model that we propose here, can be endowed with a composite scalar sector and Wess-Zumino field ; their quantization in the functionnal integral…
Most modern theoretical considerations of the physical world suggest that nature is: (1) field-theoretic, (2) smooth, (3) local, (4) gauged, (5) containing fermions, and (6) non-perturbative. Tautologous as this may sound to experts, it is…
The Bargmann-Michel-Telegdi equation, which describes the precession of the spin of a charged Dirac particle moving in a homogeneous electromagnetic field, is generalized to include also other homogeneous background fields. The treatment…
This paper is a sequel to one in which we examined the affine symmetry algebras of arbitrary classical principal chiral models and symmetric space models in two dimensions. It examines the extension of those results in the presence of…
Unification ideas suggest an integral treatment of fermion and boson spin and gauge-group degrees of freedom. Hence, a generalized quantum field equation, based on Dirac's, is proposed and investigated which contains gauge and flavor…
In its canonical formulation, general relativity is subject to gauge transformations that are equivalent to space-time coordinate changes of general covariance only when the gauge generators, given by the Hamiltonian and diffeomorphism…
We present a Lagrangian theory of gravitation that develops some ideas proposed several years ago. It is formulated on the 10-dimensional space $\mathcal{S}$ of the local Lorentz frames (tetrads) and it is covariant under the symplectic…
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 gravity, breaking symmetry from a group G to a group H plays the role of describing geometry in relation to the geometry the homogeneous space G/H. The deep reason for this is Cartan's "method of equivalence," giving, in particular, an…
For a particle that is constrained on an ($N-1$)-dimensional ($N\geq2$) curved surface, the Cartesian components of its momentum in $N$-dimensional flat space is believed to offer a proper form of momentum for the particle on the surface,…