Related papers: GRAVITY AND GLOBAL SYMMETRIES
Effective field theories describing gravity coupled to matter are investigated, allowing for operators of arbitrary mass dimension. Terms violating local Lorentz and diffeomorphism invariance while preserving internal gauge symmetries are…
We study spatial variations of the fine-structure constant in the presence of static straight cosmic strings in the weak-field approximation in Einstein gravity. We work in the context of a generic Bekenstein-type model and consider a gauge…
The $S$-matrix formulation of gravity suggests that the $\theta$-vacuum structure must not be sustained by the theory. We point out that, when applied to the vacuum of general relativity, this criterion hints to supersymmetry. The…
Tensor-scalar theories of gravitation are commonly employed as extensions of General Relativity that allow to describe a much wider phenomenology. They are also naturally generated as low energy limit of higher-dimensional or unified…
We investigate several problems in relativity and particle physics where symmetries play a central role; in all cases geometric properties of Lie groups and their quotients are related to physical effects. The first part is concerned with…
The cosmological propagation of tensor perturbations is studied in the context of parity-violating extensions of the symmetric teleparallel equivalent of General Relativity theory. This non-Riemannian formulation allows for a wider variety…
In this lecture I address the issue of possible large distance modification of gravity and its observational consequences. Although, for the illustrative purposes we focus on a particular simple generally-covariant example, our conclusions…
Effective gravitational field theories with background fields break local Lorentz symmetry and diffeomorphism invariance. Examples include Chern-Simons gravity, massive gravity, and the Standard-Model Extension (SME). The physical…
A consistent implementation of quantum gravity is expected to change the familiar notions of space, time and the propagation of matter in drastic ways. This will have consequences on very small scales, but also gives rise to correction…
There exist non-trivial stationary points of the Euclidean action for an axion particle minimally coupled to Einstein gravity, dubbed wormholes. They explicitly break the continuos global shift symmetry of the axion in a non-perturbative…
The axion solution to the strong CP problem makes use of a global Peccei-Quinn U(1) symmetry which is susceptible to violations from quantum gravitational effects. We show how discrete gauge symmetries can protect the axion from such…
Recently a scale invariant theory of gravity was constructed by imposing a conformal symmetry on general relativity. The imposition of this symmetry changed the configuration space from superspace - the space of all Riemannian 3-metrics…
We propose quantum gravitational constraints on effective four-dimensional theories with N=1 supersymmetry. These Swampland constraints arise by demanding consistency of the worldsheet theory of a class of axionic, or EFT, strings whose…
Conventionally, the strong-$CP$ problem is assumed to be a naturalness puzzle, with the axion solution sometimes viewed as an ad hoc fix. Gravity is either ignored or taken as a threat for the global Peccei-Quinn symmetry. We explain that…
Suggested theory involves a drastic revision of a role of local internal symmetries in physical concept of curved geometry. Under the reflection of fields and their dynamics from Minkowski to Riemannian space a standard gauge principle of…
We discuss two independent issues about the baryon asymmetry of the universe. First, assuming that it is generated by an unspecified source at high temperatures, we study the effects of non-perturbative $SU(2)_W$ dynamics above the…
In this paper we use the AdS/CFT correspondence to refine and then establish a set of old conjectures about symmetries in quantum gravity. We first show that any global symmetry, discrete or continuous, in a bulk quantum gravity theory with…
The gravitational field of monopoles, cosmic strings and domain walls is studied in the quadratic gravitational theory $R+\alpha R^2$ with $\alpha |R|\ll 1$, and is compared with the result in Einstein's theory. The metric aquires…
Cosmological observations indicate that the Einstein equation may not be entirely correct to describe gravity. However, numerous modifications of these equations usually do not affect foundations of the theory. In this paper two important…
Global-symmetry violating higher-dimension operators, expected to be induced by Planck-scale physics, in general drastically alter the properties of the axion field associated with the Peccei-Quinn solution to the strong-CP problem, and…