Related papers: A diffeomorphism anomaly in every dimension
The polynomial affine gravity is an alternative model of gravity whose fundamental field is the affine connection, and it is invariant under the complete group of diffeomorphisms. In 3+1 dimensions the field equations generalise those of…
Self-dual gravity is a diffeomorphism invariant theory in four dimensions that describes two propagating polarisations of the graviton and has a negative mass dimension coupling constant. Nevertheless, this theory is not only renormalisable…
The diffeomorphism symmetry of general relativity leads in the canonical formulation to constraints, which encode the dynamics of the theory. These constraints satisfy a complicated algebra, known as Dirac's hypersurface deformation…
We give an overview of the issue of anomalies in field theories with extra dimensions. We start by reviewing in a pedagogical way the computation of the standard perturbative gauge and gravitational anomalies on non-compact spaces, using…
Diffeomorphism invariance is a feature that gets sometimes highlighted as something with profound implications in the physics of spacetime. Moreover, it is often wrongly associated exclusively with General Relativity. The fact that…
We discuss two distinct realizations of the diffeomorphism group for metric gravity, which give rise to theories that are classically equivalent, but quantum mechanically distinct. We renormalize them in $d=2+\epsilon$ dimensions,…
The quantum theory of a massless spin two particle is strongly constrained by diffeomorphism invariance, which is in turn implied by unitarity. We explicitly exhibit the space-time diffeomorphism algebra of string theory, realizing it in…
In the AdS/CFT correspondence one encounters theories that are not invariant under diffeomorphisms. In the boundary theory this is a gravitational anomaly, and can arise in 4k+2 dimensions. In the bulk, there can be gravitational…
A simple diffeomorphism invariant theory of connections with the non-compact structure group R of real numbers is quantized. The theory is defined on a four-dimensional 'space-time' by an action resembling closely the self-dual Plebanski…
We show that the anomalies of the Virasoro algebra are due to the asymmetric behavior of raising and lowering operators with respect to the ground state of the string. With the adoption of a symmetric vacuum we obtain a non-anomalous theory…
The well-known fact that classical automorphisms of (compactified) Minkowski spacetime (Poincare or conformal trandsformations) also allow a natural derivation/interpretation in the modular setting (in the operator-algebraic sense of Tomita…
We discuss the quantum theory of 1+1 dimensional dilaton gravity, which is an interesting model with analogous features to the spherically symmetric gravitational systems in 3+1 dimensions. The functional measures over the metrics and the…
Quantization of field-theoretic models with gauge symmetries is often obstructed by quantum anomalies. It is commonly believed that the origin of these anomalies lies in the infinite number of degrees of freedom, which requires completing…
We formally prove the existence of a quantization procedure that makes the path integral of a general diffeomorphism-invariant theory of gravity, with fixed total spacetime volume, equivalent to that of its unimodular version. This is…
Conceptual difficulties in semiclassical and quantum gravity arise from diffeomorphism invariance of classical general relativity. With a motivation to shed some light on these difficulties, we study a class of toy models for which…
A careful study of the induced transformations on spatial quantities due to 4-dimensional spacetime diffeomorphisms in the canonical formulation of general relativity is undertaken. Use of a general formalism, which indicates the role of…
Diffeomorphisms and an internal symmetry (e.g., local Lorentz invariance) are typically regarded as the symmetries of any geometrical gravity theory, including general relativity. In the first-order formalism, diffeomorphisms can be thought…
We study the extent to which diffeomorphism invariance restricts the properties of the primordial perturbations in single scalar field models. We derive a set of identities that constrain the connected correlators of the cosmological…
It is a general belief that the only possible way to consistently deform the Pauli-Fierz action, changing also the gauge algebra, is general relativity. Here we show that a different type of deformation exists in three dimensions if one…
Two different sources of emergent gravity lead to the inverse square of length dimension of metric field, $[g_{\mu\nu}]=1/[l]^2$, as distinct from the conventional dimensionless metric, $[g_{\mu\nu}]=1$, for $c = 1$. In both scenarios all…