Related papers: General relativity with a topological phase: an ac…
In this review we consider first order gravity in four dimensions. In particular, we focus our attention in formulations where the fundamental variables are a tetrad $e_a^I$ and a SO(3,1) connection ${\omega_{aI}}^J$. We study the most…
Action principles of the BF type for diffeomorphism invariant topological field theories living in n-dimensional spacetime manifolds are presented. Their construction is inspired by Cuesta and Montesinos' recent paper where Cartan's first…
In the paper we show that the general relativity action (and Lagrangian) in recent Einstein-Palatini formulation is equivalent to the action (and Langrangian) of a gauge field. We begin with a bit of information of the Einstein-Palatini…
We study field theory models in the context of a gravitational theory based on the requirement that the measure of integration in the action is not necessarily \sqrt{-g} but it is determined dynamically through additional degrees of…
The action in general relativity (GR), which is an integral over the manifold plus an integral over the boundary, is a global object and is only well defined when the topology is fixed. Therefore, to use the action in GR and in most…
In three spacetime dimensions, general relativity becomes a topological field theory, whose dynamics can be largely described holographically by a two-dimensional conformal field theory at the ``boundary'' of spacetime. I review what is…
Lattice regularization of the theory of gravity provides a new possibility for study of the Big Bang problem. In the 4D lattice theories of gravity, the existence of a high-temperature phase is proved, which is characterized by the folding…
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 action principle of the BF type introduced by Capovilla, Montesinos, Prieto, and Rojas (CMPR) which describes general relativity with Immirzi parameter is modified in order to allow the inclusion of the cosmological constant. The…
It is known that the Einstein-Hilbert action with a positive cosmological constant can be represented as a perturbation of the SO(4,1) BF theory by a symmetry-breaking term quadratic in the B field. Introducing fermionic matter generates…
An alternative approach to introducing gravitational dynamics on a brane embedded in a higher dimensional spacetime is presented. The brane is treated as a boundary of a higher dimensional manifold in which the bulk action is described by a…
General relativity characterizes gravity as a geometric property exhibited on spacetime by massive objects while teleparallel gravity achieves the same results, at the level of equations, by taking a torsional perspective of gravity.…
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…
We study the Hamiltonian formulation of the generally covariant theory defined by the Lagrangian 4-form L=e_I e_J F^{IJ}(\omega) where e^I is a tetrad field and F^{IJ} is the curvature of a Lorentz connection \omega^{IJ}. This theory can be…
It has been proposed to study the theory resulting from setting the gravitational constant to zero in the first order formalism for general relativity. In this letter we investigate this theory in the presence of matter fields, establish…
Besides the String Theory context, the quantum General Relativity can be studied by the use of constrained topological field theories. In the celebrated Plebanski formalism, the constraints connecting topological field theories and gravity…
A generalization of General Relativity is studied. The standard Einstein-Hilbert action is considered in the Palatini formalism, where the connection and the metric are independent variables, and the connection is not symmetric. As a result…
We show in this paper that it is possible to formulate General Relativity in a phase space coordinatized by two $SO(3)$ connections. We analyze first the Husain-Kucha\v{r} model and find a two connection description for it. Introducing a…
The equivalence principle postulates a frame. This implies globally special and locally general relativity. It is proposed here that spacetime emerges from the gauge potential of translations, whilst the Lorenz symmetry is gauged into the…
A detailed analysis of the BF formulation for general relativity given by Capovilla, Montesinos, Prieto, and Rojas is performed. The action principle of this formulation is written in an equivalent form by doing a transformation of the…