Related papers: Gravity's Scalar Cousin
Can we give the graviton a mass? Does it even make sense to speak of a massive graviton? In this essay I shall answer these questions in the affirmative. I shall outline an alternative to Einstein Gravity that satisfies the Equivalence…
We discuss some of the issues which we encounter when we try to invoke the scalar-tensor theories of gravitation as a theoretical basis of quintessence. One of the advantages of appealing to these theories is that they allow us to implement…
Four-dimensional cylindrically symmetric spacetimes with homothetic self-similarity are studied in the context of Einstein's Theory of Gravity, and a class of exact solutions to the Einstein-massless scalar field equations is found. Their…
We study a scenario in which the dilaton, a pseudo-Goldstone boson of the spontaneous breaking of conformal symmetry, provides a portal between dark matter and the visible sector. We consider the low-energy description of the theory in…
A theory of the quasidilaton is an extension of massive gravity by a scalar field, nonlinearly realizing a certain new global symmetry of the Lagrangian. It has been shown that unlike pure massive gravity, this theory does admit homogeneous…
We study the soft behavior of two seemingly different particles that are both referred to as dilatons in the literature, namely the one that appears in theories of gravity and in string theory and the Nambu-Goldstone boson of spontaneously…
We propose a general correspondence between gravity and spin models, inspired by the well-known IR equivalence between lattice gauge theories and the spin models. This suggests a connection between continuous type Hawking-phase transitions…
We investigated the problem of the dynamical collapse of a self-gravitating complex charged scalar field in Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton theory with a phantom copuling for the adequate fields in the system under consideration. We also…
We reexamine a scenario in which photons and gravitons arise as Goldstone bosons associated with the spontaneous breaking of Lorentz invariance. We study the emergence of Lorentz invariant low energy physics in an effective field theory…
We study continuously self-similar solutions of four-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton theory, with an arbitrary dilaton coupling. Self-similarity is an emergent symmetry of gravitational collapse near the threshold of black hole…
We discuss some fundamental issues underlying gravitational physics and point out some of the main shortcomings of Einstein's General Relativity. In particular, after taking into account the role of the two main objects of relativistic…
We consider some aspects of spontaneous breaking of Lorentz Invariance in field theories, discussing the possibility that the certain tensor operators may condensate in the ground state in which case the tensor Goldstone particles would…
The field theoretic action for gravitational interactions in d+2 dimensions is constructed in the formalism of 2T-physics. General Relativity in d dimensions emerges as a shadow of this theory with one less time and one less space…
Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity coupled to a dynamical dilaton is examined from the viewpoint of Einstein's equivalence principle. We point out that the usual frame change that applies to the action without curvature correction does not cure…
A scale invariant Goldstino theory coupled to Supergravity is obtained as a standard supergravity dual of a rigidly scale invariant higher--curvature Supergravity with a nilpotent chiral scalar curvature. The bosonic part of this theory…
The basic idea that gravity can be a long-wavelength effect {\it induced} by the peculiar ground state of an underlying quantum field theory leads to consider the implications of spontaneous symmetry breaking through an elementary scalar…
The role played by torsion in gravitation is critically reviewed. After a description of the problems and controversies involving the physics of torsion, a comprehensive presentation of the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity is…
We compute the evolution of cosmological perturbations in a recently proposed Weyl-symmetric theory of two scalar fields with oppositely-signed conformal couplings to Einstein gravity. It is motivated from the minimal conformal extension of…
We explore higher-derivative terms in the low-energy effective action for the dilaton, the Goldstone boson of spontaneously broken scale invariance. Focusing on the simplest holographic realization of spontaneously broken scale invariance,…
The explicit violation of the general gauge invariance/relativity is adopted as the origin of dark matter and dark energy of the gravitational nature. The violation of the local scale invariance alone, with the residual unimodular one, is…