Related papers: Spacetime Structures and Physical Theories
The Palatini formulation is used to develop a genuine connection theory for general relativity, in which the gravitational field is represented by a Lorentz-valued spin connection. The existence of a tetrad field, given by the Fock-Ivanenko…
As true as it is that a bricklayer needs a plumb line and a T-square, so it is that a physicist using general relativity needs how to draw geodesics and use fields of congruent vector frames of reference. While the first part of the…
We consider Hilbert's problem of the axioms of Physics at a qualitative or conceptual level. This issue is more pressing than ever as we seek to understand how both General Relativity and quantum theory could emerge from some deeper theory…
The formulae of special relativity are developed through the k-calculus with no presumption of a manifold. The metric is determined empirically by the exchange of photons, and the treatment suggests that the exchange of photons seen in…
We introduce a new geometric framework for relativistic particle dynamics based on contact geometry and suitable for treating dissipative processes like particle decay. The dynamics is formulated on a nine--dimensional extended phase space…
The possibility that the strength of gravitational interactions might slowly increase with distance, is explored by formulating a set of effective field equations, which incorporate the gravitational, vacuum-polarization induced, running of…
The characteristic sizes of astrophysical structures, up to the whole observed Universe, can be recovered, in principle, assuming that gravity is the overall interaction assembling systems starting from microscopic scales, whose order of…
In this paper, we study implications of the geometrical nature of space- time for some of the basic tenets of quantum mechanics. That is, we study two different implications of the principle of general covariance; first we quantize a…
Spacetime is conventionally viewed as a stage on which actors, in the form of fields, move. Here, we explore what may lie beyond this picture. The starting point is the observation that quantum fluctuations of fields are the more strongly…
The space-time length R between a moving source and the observation point is calculated in order to substitute with it the spatial distance D, normally used in the Newton's law of gravitation, as well as in any inverse-square-law.…
The nature of the gravitational interaction between ordinary and dark matter is still open. Any deviation from universality or the Newtonian law also modifies the standard assumption of collisionless dark matter. On the other hand,…
We discuss the distinction between the notion of partial observable and the notion of complete observable. Mixing up the two is frequently a source of confusion. The distinction bears on several issues related to observability, such as (i)…
Standard approaches to quantum gravity start with a pre-spacetime structure and attempt, in accordance with Bohr's correspondence principle, to recover the pseudo-Riemannian manifold in the low energy limit. These approaches assume there is…
The fact that in Minkowski space, space and time are both quantized does not have to be introduced as a new postulate in physics, but can actually be derived by combining certain features of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. This is…
We discuss how developments in physics often imply in the need that spacetime acquires an increasingly richer and complex structure. General Relativity was the first theory to show us the way to connect space and time with the physical…
Two Lagrangian functions are used to construct geometric field theories. One of these Lagrangians depends on the curvature of space, while the other depends on curvature and torsion. It is shown that the theory constructed from the first…
In a recent paper (arXiv:1412.6000) a general mechanism for emergence of cosmological space-time geometry from a quantum gravity setting was devised and departure from standard dispersion relations for elementary particle were predicted. We…
Relativistic theory of the Cox's scalar not point-like particle with intrinsic structure is developed on the background of arbitrary curved space-time. It is shown that in the most general form, the extended Proca-like tensor first order…
It is argued that substantial portions of both Newtonian particle mechanics and general relativity can be viewed as relational (rather than absolute) theories. I furthermore use the relational particle models as toy models to investigate…
The earlier developed algorithm for constructing a self-conjugate Hamiltonian in the \eta-representation for Dirac particles interacting with a general gravitational field is extended to the case of electromagnetic fields. This Hamiltonian…