A nonlocal generalization of Einstein's theory of gravitation is constructed within the framework of the translational gauge theory of gravity. In the linear approximation, the nonlocal theory can be interpreted as linearized general relativity but in the presence of "dark matter" that can be simply expressed as an integral transform of matter. It is shown that this approach can accommodate the Tohline-Kuhn treatment of the astrophysical evidence for dark matter.
Contrary to recent claims in the literature, a simple test for reflection positivite, which we call perturbative reflection positivity in the coincidence limit, is shown to be satisfied for nonlocal field theories. Particular attention is given to weakly nonlocal gravity and gauge theories.
We study the causal structure of a class of weakly nonlocal gravitational theories (eventually coupled to matter) that are compatible with perturbative unitarity and finiteness at quantum level. In particular, we show that in nonlocal quantum gravity a Shapiro's time advance never occurs. Moreover, we provide a recipe to construct a general ultraviolet complete gravitational theory coupled to matter (with or without supersymmetry) compatible with causality. Therefore, nonlocal gravity is consistent with causality, as well as string theory.
We consider a nonlocal gravity model motivated by nonperturbative Quantum Gravity studies. This model, if correct, suggests the existence of strong IR relevant effects which can lead to an interesting late time cosmology. We implement the IR modification directly in the effective action. We show that, upon some assumptions on initial conditions, this model describes an observationally viable background cosmology being also consistent with local gravity tests.
We consider a new modified gravity model with nonlocal term of the form $R^{-1} \mathcal{F}(\Box) R. $ This kind of nonlocality is motivated by investigation of applicability of a few unusual ansätze to obtain some exact cosmological solutions. In particular, we find attractive and useful quadratic ansatz $\Box R = q R^{2}.$
We address the stability issue of Ricci-flat and maximally symmetric spacetimes in nonlocal gravity to all perturbative orders in the gravitational perturbation. Assuming a potential at least cubic in curvature tensors but quadratic in the Ricci tensor, our proof consists on a mapping of the stability analysis in nonlocal gravity to the same problem in Einstein-Hilbert theory. One of the consequences is that only the graviton field can propagate and the theory is ghost-free at all perturbative orders. All the results known in Einstein gravity in vacuum with or without a cosmological constant c…
Based on the ultraviolet asymptotic freedom of nonlocal quantum gravity, we show that the trans-Planckian energy regime is unattainable in laboratory experiments. As physical implications, it turns out that the violation of causality, typical of nonlocal field theories, can never be detected in particle accelerators, while the asymptotic freedom of the theory provides an elegant solution to the so called trans-Planckian cosmological problem.
Despite many nice properties and numerous achievements, general relativity is not a complete theory. One of actual approaches towards more complete theory of gravity is its nonlocal modification. We present here a brief review of nonlocal gravity with its cosmological solutions. In particular, we pay special attention to two nonlocal models and their nonsingular bounce solutions for the cosmic scale factor.
We study the matter one-loop quantum corrections to the gravitational sector in a gravity theory coupled with a nonlocal scalar field. We find that non-renormalizable divergences disappear when the propagator of the scalar field approaches to a non-zero constant at high momentum, while the vacuum energy is still divergent. We also comment on non-local modification of fermion, gauge field and graviton.
In nonlocal general relativity, linearized gravitational waves are damped as they propagate from the source to the receiver in the Minkowski vacuum. Nonlocal gravity is a generalization of Einstein's theory of gravitation in which nonlocality is due to the gravitational memory of past events. That nonlocal gravity is dissipative is demonstrated in this paper within certain approximation schemes. The gravitational memory drag leads to the decay of the amplitude of gravitational waves given by the exponential damping factor exp (-t/τ), where $τ$ depends on the kernel of nonlocal gravity. The dam…
This chapter of the Handbook of Quantum Gravity aims to illustrate how nonlocality can be implemented in field theories, as well as the manner it solves fundamental difficulties of gravitational theories. We review Stelle's quadratic gravity, which achieves multiplicative renormalizability successfully to remove quantum divergences by modifying the Einstein's action but at the price of breaking the unitarity of the theory and introducing Ostrogradski's ghosts. Utilizing nonlocal operators, one is able not only to make the theory renormalizable, but also to get rid of these ghost modes that ari…
In metric-affine theories of gravity such as the C-theories, the spacetime connection is associated to a metric that is nontrivially related to the physical metric. In this article, such theories are rewritten in terms of a single metric and it is shown that they can be recast as effectively nonlocal gravity. With some assumptions, known ghost-free theories with non-singular and cosmologically interesting properties may be recovered. Relations between different formulations are analysed at both perturbative and nonperturbative levels taking carefully into account subtleties with boundary condi…
During hundred years of General Relativity (GR), many significant gravitational phenomena have been predicted and discovered. General Relativity is still the best theory of gravity. Nevertheless, some (quantum) theoretical and (astrophysical and cosmological) phenomenological difficulties of modern gravity have been motivation to search more general theory of gravity than GR. As a result, many modifications of GR have been considered. One of promising recent investigations is Nonlocal Modified Gravity. In this article we present a brief review of some nonlocal gravity models with their cosmolo…
We consider some cosmological aspects of nonlocal modified gravity with $Λ$ term, where nonlocality is of the type $R \mathcal{F}(\Box) R$. Using ansatz of the form $\Box R = r R +s,$ we find a few a(t) nonsingular bounce cosmological solutions for all three values of spatial curvature parameter k. We also discuss this modified gravity model from F(R) theory point of view.
The Newtonian regime of a recent nonlocal extension of general relativity (GR) is investigated. Nonlocality is introduced via a scalar "constitutive" kernel in a special case of the translational gauge theory of gravitation, namely, the teleparallel equivalent of GR. In this theory, the nonlocal aspect of gravity simulates dark matter. A nonlocal and nonlinear generalization of Poisson's equation of Newtonian gravitation is presented. The implications of nonlocality for the gravitational physics in the solar system are briefly studied.
A nonlocal gravity model (2.1) was introduced and considered recently [49], and two exact cosmological solutions in flat space were presented. The first solution is related to some radiation effects generated by nonlocal dynamics on dark energy background, while the second one is a nonsingular time symmetric bounce. In the present paper we investigate other possible exact cosmological solutions and find some the new ones in nonflat space. Used nonlocal gravity dynamics can change background topology. To solve the corresponding eqations of motion, we first look for a solution of the eigenvalue …
We present a method to solve the nonlinear dynamical equations of motion in gravitational theories with fundamental nonlocalities of a certain type. For these specific form factors, which appear in some renormalizable theories, the number of field degrees of freedom and of initial conditions is finite.
Earlier constructed a simple nonlocal de Sitter gravity model has a cosmological solution in a very good agreement with astronomical observations. In this paper, we continue the investigation of the nonlocal de Sitter model of gravity, focusing on finding an appropriate solution for the Schwarzschild-de Sitter metric. We succeeded to solve the equations of motion in a certain approximation. The obtained approximate solution is of particular interest for examining the possible role of non-local de Sitter gravity in describing the effects in galactic dynamics that are usually attributed to dark …
The recent nonlocal generalization of Einstein's theory of gravitation reduces in the Newtonian regime to a nonlocal and nonlinear modification of Poisson's equation of Newtonian gravity. The nonlocally modified Poisson equation implies that nonlocality can simulate dark matter. Observational data regarding dark matter provide limited information about the functional form of the reciprocal kernel, from which the original nonlocal kernel of the theory must be determined. We study this inverse problem of nonlocal gravity in the linear domain, where the applicability of the Fourier transform meth…
We describe a framework for a generalized nonlocal gravity theory inspired by Poincaré gauge theory. Our theory provides a unified description of previous nonlocal extensions of Einstein's theory of gravitation, in particular it allows for a clear geometrical foundation. Furthermore, it incorporates recent simplifications for the ansatz of the nonlocality, which should allow for a systematic study of the impact of nonlocal concepts on observations.
We construct a quadratic curvature theory of gravity whose graviton propagator around the Minkowski background respects wordline inversion symmetry, the particle approximation to modular invariance in string theory. This symmetry automatically yields a corresponding gravitational theory that is nonlocal, with the action containing infinite order differential operators. As a consequence, despite being a higher order derivative theory, it is ghost-free and has no degrees of freedom besides the massless spin-$2$ graviton of Einstein's general relativity. By working in the linearised regime we sho…
We reconsider here the model where large quantum gravity effects were first found, but now in its Null Surface Formulation (NSF). We find that although the set of coherent states for $Z$, the basic variable of NSF, is as restricted as it is the one for the metric, while some type of small deviations from these states may cause huge fluctuations on the metric, the corresponding fluctuations on $Z$ remain small.
We discuss the cosmological implications of nonlocal modifications of general relativity containing tensorial structures. Assuming the presence of standard radiation- and matter-dominated eras, we show that, except in very particular cases, the nonlocal terms contribute a rapidly growing energy density. These models therefore generically do not have a stable cosmological evolution.
We consider nonlocal modification of the Einstein theory of gravity in framework of the pseudo-Riemannian geometry. The nonlocal term has the form $\mathcal{H}(R) \mathcal{F}(\Box)\mathcal {G}(R)$, where $\mathcal{H}$ and $\mathcal{G}$ are differentiable functions of the scalar curvature $R,$ and $ \mathcal{F}(\Box)= \displaystyle \sum_{n =0}^{\infty} f_{n}\Box^{n}$ is an analytic function of the d'Alambert operator $\Box .$ Using calculus of variations of the action functional, we derived the corresponding equations of motion. The variation of action is induced by variation of the gravitation…
The Deser-Woodard (DW) nonlocal gravity model has been proposed in order to describe the late-time acceleration of the universe without introducing dark energy. In this paper we focus, however, on the early stage of the universe and demonstrate how a primordial bounce in the vacuum spacetime can be realized in the framework of the DW nonlocal model. We reconstruct the nonlocal distortion function, which encodes all the modifications to the Einstein-Hilbert action, in order to generate bouncing solutions to solve the initial singularity problem. We show that the initial conditions can be chosen…
A new representation is found for the action of the recently suggested ghost-free nonlocal gravity models generating de Sitter or Anti-de Sitter background with an arbitrary value of the effective cosmological constant. This representation allows one to extend applications of these models from maximally symmetric to generic Einstein spaces and black hole solutions, but clearly indicates violation of the general relativistic limit in this class of theories, induced by their infrared behavior. It is shown that this limit can be recovered in a special conformal frame of these theories, and their …
We prove that the Minkowski spacetime is stable at nonlinear level and to all perturbative orders in the gravitational perturbation in a general class of nonlocal gravitational theories that are unitary and finite at quantum level.
We investigate the nonlocal gravity theory by deriving nonlocal equations of motion using the traditional variation principle in a homogeneous background. We focus on a class of models with a linear nonlocal modification term in the action. It is found that the resulting equations of motion contain the advanced Green's function, implying that there is an acausality problem. As a consequence, a divergence arises in the solutions due to contributions from the future infinity unless the Universe will go back to the radiation dominated era or become the Minkowski spacetime in the future. We also d…
We construct a Hamiltonian for the nonlocal F(R) theory in the present work. By this construction, we demonstrate the nature of the ghost degrees of freedom. Finally, we find conditions that give rise to ghost-free theories
We analyze the structure of a recent nonlocal generalization of Einstein's theory of gravitation by Mashhoon et al. By means of a covariant technique, we derive an expanded version of the nonlocality tensor which constitutes the theory. At the lowest orders of approximation, this leads to a simplification which sheds light on the fundamental structure of the theory and may prove useful in the search for exact solutions of nonlocal gravity.
We review an approach developed in the last few years by our group in which GR is modified in the infrared, at an effective level, by nonlocal terms associated to a mass scale. We begin by recalling the notion of quantum effective action and its associated nonlocalities, illustrating some of their features with the anomaly-induced effective actions in $D=2$ and $D=4$. We examine conceptual issues of nonlocal theories such as causality, degrees of freedoms and ghosts, stressing the importance of the fact that these nonlocalities only emerge at the effective level. We discuss a particular class …
We briefly review the current status of nonlocal gravity (NLG), which is a classical nonlocal generalization of Einstein's theory of gravitation based on a certain analogy with the nonlocal electrodynamics of media. Nonlocal gravity thus involves integro-differential field equations and a causal constitutive kernel that should ultimately be determined from observational data. We consider the stationary gravitational field of an isolated rotating astronomical source in the linear approximation of nonlocal gravity. In this weak-field and slow-motion approximation of NLG, we describe the gravitom…
Nonlocal gravity has been shown to provide a phenomenologically viable infrared modification of GR. A natural question is whether the required nonlocality can emerge from perturbative quantum loop corrections due to light particles. We show that this is not the case. For the value of the mass scale of the non-local models required by cosmology, the perturbative form factors obtained from the loop corrections, in the present cosmological epoch, are in the regime where they are local. The mechanism behind the generation of the required nonlocality must be more complex, possibly related to strong…
The stability of the de-Sitter universe in nonlocal gravity
School of Physics and Electronic Engineering, Shanxi Normal University（山西师范大学物理与电子工程学院）；College of Physical Science and Technology, Hebei University（河北大学物理科学与技术学院）
In this paper we consider modification of general relativity extending $R - 2 Λ$ by nonlocal term of the form $\sqrt{R-2Λ}\, \mathcal{F}(\Box)\, \sqrt{R-2Λ} ,$ where $\mathcal{F}(\Box)$ is an analytic function of the d'Alembert operator $\Box$. We have found some exact cosmological solutions of the corresponding equations of motion without matter and with $Λ\neq 0$. One of these solutions is $ a (t) = A \, t^{\frac{2}{3}} \, e^{\fracΛ{14} t^2} ,$ which imitates properties similar to an interplay of the dark matter and the dark energy. For this solution we calculated some cosmological parameter…
A complete basis of nonlocal invariants in quantum gravity theory is built to third order in spacetime curvature and matter-field strengths. The nonlocal identities are obtained which reduce this basis for manifolds with dimensionality $2ω<6$. The present results are used in heat-kernel theory, theory of gauge fields and serve as a basis for the model-independent approach to quantum gravity and, in particular, for the study of nonlocal vacuum effects in the gravitational collapse problem.
Nonlocal gravity (NLG) is a classical nonlocal generalization of Einstein's theory of gravitation based on a certain analogy with the nonlocal electrodynamics of media. The history dependence enters NLG through a constitutive relation involving a causal kernel that should ultimately be determined via observational data. The purpose of this paper is to reformulate nonlocal gravity such that the nonlocal aspect of the constitutive relation directly connects measurable quantities as in the nonlocal electrodynamics of media. The resulting constitutive relation turns out to coincide with the recent…
It is well known that the Noether symmetry approach proves to be very useful not only to fix physically viable cosmological models but also to reduce dynamics and achieve exact solutions. In this work, We examine a formal framework of nonlocal $f(T)$ theory of gravity through the Noether symmetry approach. The Noether equations of the nonlocal $f(T)$ theory are obtained for flat FLRW universe. We analyse the dynamics of the field in a nonlocal $f(T)$ gravity admitted by the Noether symmetry. We observe that there exists a transition from a deceleration phase to the acceleration one in our pres…
Nonlocal gravity models are constructed to explain the current acceleration of the universe. These models are inspired by the infrared correction appearing in Einstein Hilbert action. Here we develop the Hamiltonian formalism of a nonlocal model by considering only terms to quadratic order in Ricci tensor and Ricci scalar. We also show how to count the degree of freedom using Hamiltonian formalism in this model.
We consider cosmological properties of modified gravity with nonlocal term $ R^p\mathcal{F}(\Box)R^q$ in its Lagrangian. Equations of motion are presented. For the flat FLRW metric, and some particular values of natural numbers $p$ and $q$ cosmological solutions of the form $a(t)= C e^{- \frac γ{12}t^2}$ are found.
The analysis of measurements of accelerated observers in Minkowski spacetime has led to the development of nonlocal special relativity theory. Inertia and gravitation are intimately connected in accordance with the principle of equivalence. We therefore seek a nonlocal generalization of the theory of gravitation such that in the new theory the field equations are integro-differential equations for the local gravitational field. We show that it is possible to develop a nonlocal generalization of Einstein's theory of gravitation via the introduction of a scalar "constitutive" kernel in the telep…
The field equations of the recent nonlocal generalization of Einstein's theory of gravitation are presented in a form that is reminiscent of general relativity. The implications of the nonlocal field equations are studied in the case of conformally flat spacetimes. Even in this simple case, the field equations are intractable. Therefore, to gain insight into the nature of these equations, we investigate the structure of nonlocal gravity in two-dimensional spacetimes. While any smooth 2D spacetime is conformally flat and satisfies Einstein's field equations, only a subset containing either a Ki…
In this work we calculate the low-energy effective action for gravity with torsion, obtained after the integration of scalar and fermionic matter fields, using the local momentum representation based on the Riemann normal coordinates expansion. By considering this expansion around different space-time points, we also compute the nonlocal terms together with the more usual divergent ones. Finally we discuss the applicability of our results to the calculation of particle production probabilities.
Nonlocal terms in the Einstein Hilbert(EH) action appears as IR corrections in effective theory of quantum gravity. Here we have considered such an action keeping the terms which are quadratic in Ricci Scalar. We obtain the solution for a spherical symmetric. We conduct an analysis for linearised gravity action and find the Newtonian potentials of linearized gravity action and count the degrees of freedom. Finally we reproduce the results for few known examples found in literature.
It was recently found that there are classes of nonlocal gravity theories that are free of ghosts and singularities in their Newtonian limit [PRL, 108 (2012), 031101]. In these proceedings, a detailed and pedagogical derivation of a main result, the flat space propagator for an arbitrary covariant metric theory of gravitation, is presented. The result is applied to analyse f(R) models, Gauss-Bonnet theory, Weyl-squared gravity and the potentially asymptotically free nonlocal theories.
We propose a nonlocal field theory for gravity in presence of matter consistent with perturbative unitarity, quantum finiteness, and other essential classical properties that we are going to list below. First, the theory exactly reproduces the same tree-level scattering amplitudes of Einstein's gravity coupled to matter insuring no violation of macro-causality. Second, all the exact solutions of the Einstein's theory are also exact solutions of the nonlocal theory. Finally, and most importantly, the linear and nonlinear stability analysis of the exact solutions in nonlocal gravity (with or wit…
In order to explain the late-time cosmological acceleration, we propose a new pure geometric gravity based on Deser-Woodard theory, in which the expansion of a matter-dominated universe can be accelerating. This new theory behaves as well as general relativity in solar system and gravitational waves, which is an important improvement over Deser-Woodard nonlocal gravity. Especially, for the simplest case, theoretical considerations determine all the parameters that appear in the Lagrangian.
Università di Napoli “Federico II”（那不勒斯费德里科二世大学）；Scuola Superiore Meridionale（南方高等学院）；INFN Sezione di Napoli（意大利国家核物理研究所那不勒斯分部）；Van Swinderen Institute, University of Groningen（格罗宁根大学范斯温德伦研究所）
A nonlocal quantum gravity theory is presented which is finite and unitary to all orders of perturbation theory. Vertex form factors in Feynman diagrams involving gravitons suppress graviton and matter vacuum fluctuation loops by introducing a low-energy gravitational scale, Lambda_{Gvac} < 2.4 X 10^{-3} eV. Gravitons coupled to non-vacuum matter loops and matter tree graphs are controlled by a vertex form factor with the energy scale, Lambda_{GM} < 1-10 TeV. A satellite Eotvos experiment is proposed to test a violation of the equivalence principle for coupling of gravitons to pure vacuum ener…
A certain class of nonlocal theories eliminates an arbitrary cosmological constant (CC) from a universe that can be perceived as our world. Dark energy then cannot be explained by a CC; it could however be due to massive gravity. We calculate the new corrections, which originate from the nonlocal terms that eliminate the CC, to the decoupling limit Lagrangian of massive gravity. The new nonlocal terms also have internal field space Galilean symmetry and are referred here as "nonlocal Galileons." We then study a self-accelerated solution and show that the new nonlocal terms change the perturbat…
We study the impact of the limit on $|\dot{G}|/G$ from Lunar Laser Ranging on "nonlocal gravity", i.e. on models of the quantum effective action of gravity that include nonlocal terms relevant in the infrared, such as the "RR" and "RT" models proposed by our group, and the Deser-Woodard (DW) model. We elaborate on the analysis of Barreira et al. [1] and we confirm their findings that (under plausible assumptions such as the absence of strong backreaction from non-linear structures), the RR model is ruled out. We also show that the mechanism of "perfect screening for free" suggested for the DW …
The huge amounts of undetected and exotic dark matter and dark energy needed to make general relativity work on large scales argue that we should investigate modifications of gravity. The only stable, metric-based and invariant alternative to general relativity is $f(R)$ models. These models can explain primordial inflation, but they cannot dispense with either dark matter or dark energy. I advocate nonlocal modifications of gravity, not as new fundamental theories but rather as the gravitational vacuum polarization engendered by infrared quanta produced during primordial inflation. I also dis…
Nonlocal gravity is the recent classical nonlocal generalization of Einstein's theory of gravitation in which the past history of the gravitational field is taken into account. In this theory, nonlocality appears to simulate dark matter. The virial theorem for the Newtonian regime of nonlocal gravity theory is derived and its consequences for "isolated" astronomical systems in virial equilibrium at the present epoch are investigated. In particular, for a sufficiently isolated nearby galaxy in virial equilibrium, the galaxy's baryonic diameter---namely, the diameter of the smallest sphere that …
The recent classical nonlocal generalization of Einstein's theory of gravitation is presented within the framework of general relativity via the introduction of a preferred frame field. The nonlocal generalization of Einstein's field equations is derived. The linear approximation of nonlocal gravity (NLG) is thoroughly examined and the solutions of the corresponding field equations are discussed. It is shown that nonlocality, with a characteristic length scale of order 1 kpc, simulates dark matter in the linear regime while preserving causality. Light deflection in linearized nonlocal gravity …
