Fefferman and Graham showed some time ago that four dimensional conformal geometries could be analyzed in terms of six dimensional, ambient, Riemannian geometries admitting a closed homothety. Recently it was shown how conformal geometry provides a description of physics manifestly invariant under local choices of unit systems. Strikingly, Einstein's equations are then equivalent to the existence of a parallel scale tractor (a six component vector subject to a certain first order covariant constancy condition at every point in four dimensional spacetime). These results suggest a six dimensional description of four dimensional physics, a viewpoint promulgated by the two times physics program of Bars. The Fefferman--Graham construction relies on a triplet of operators corresponding, respectively to a curved six dimensional light cone, the dilation generator and the Laplacian. These form an sp(2) algebra which Bars employs as a first class algebra of constraints in a six-dimensional gauge theory. In this article four dimensional gravity is recast in terms of six dimensional quantum mechanics by melding the two times and tractor approaches. This "parent" formulation of gravity is built from an infinite set of six dimensional fields. Successively integrating out these fields yields various novel descriptions of gravity including a new four dimensional one built from a scalar doublet, a tractor vector multiplet and a conformal class of metrics.
Deser and Nepomechie established a relationship between masslessness and rigid conformal invariance by coupling to a background metric and demanding local Weyl invariance, a method which applies neither to massive theories nor theories which rely upon gauge invariances for masslessness. We extend this method to describe massive and gauge invariant theories using Weyl invariance. The key idea is to introduce a new scalar field which is constant when evaluated at the scale corresponding to the metric of physical interest. This technique relies on being able to efficiently construct Weyl invarian…
By a uniform and simple Weyl invariant coupling of scale and matter fields, we construct theories that unify massless, massive, and partially massless excitations. Masses are related to tractor Weyl weights, and Breitenlohner-Freedman stability bounds in anti de Sitter amount to reality of these weights. The method relies on tractor calculus -- mathematical machinery allowing Weyl invariance to be kept manifest at all stages. The equivalence between tractor and higher spin systems with arbitrary spins and masses is also considered.
When physics is expressed in a way that is independent of local choices of unit systems, Riemannian geometry is replaced by conformal geometry. Moreover masses become geometric, appearing as Weyl weights of tractors (conformal multiplets of fields necessary to keep local unit invariance manifest). The relationship between these weights and masses is through the scalar curvature. As a consequence mass terms are spacetime dependent for off-shell gravitational backgrounds, but happily constant for physical, Einstein manifolds. Unfortunately this introduces a naturalness problem because the scalar…
Tractors and twistors can be obtained via gauge reduction of the conformal Cartan geometry, thanks to the dressing field method. Perhaps surprisingly, it is possible to reduce the gauge symmetry further still. One can indeed erase Weyl symmetry thanks to the tractor field, in a way reminiscent of how the C^2-scalar field allows to erase SU(2) in the electroweak model. This suggests an alternative to the Weyl or conformal spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) that some authors proposed as improvement for Standard Model physics or inflationary cosmology. Here, after gauge reduction via dressing, t…
We extend our program, of coupling theories to scale in order to make their Weyl invariance manifest, to include interacting theories, fermions and supersymmetric theories. The results produce mass terms coinciding with the standard ones for universes that are Einstein, but are novel in general backgrounds. They are generalizations of the gravitational couplings of a conformally improved scalar to fields with general scaling and tensor properties. The couplings we find are more general than just trivial ones following from the conformal compensating mechanisms. In particular, in the setting wh…
Tractor Calculus is a powerful tool for analyzing Weyl invariance; although fundamentally linked to the Cartan connection, it may also be arrived at geometrically by viewing a conformal manifold as the space of null rays in a Lorentzian ambient space. For dimension d conformally flat manifolds we show that the (d+2)-dimensional Fefferman--Graham ambient space corresponds to the momentum space of a massless scalar field. Hence on the one hand the null cone parameterizes physical momentum excitations, while on the other hand, null rays correspond to points in the underlying conformal manifold. T…
We obtain the higher spin tractor equations of motion conjectured by Gover et al. from a BRST approach and use those methods to prove that they describe massive, partially massless and massless higher spins in conformally flat backgrounds. The tractor description makes invariance under local choices of unit system manifest. In this approach, physical systems are described by conformal, rather than (pseudo-)Riemannian geometry. In particular masses become geometric quantities, namely the weights of tractor fields. Massive systems can therefore be handled in a unified and simple manner mimicking…
We study conformal higher spin (CHS) fields on constant curvature backgrounds. By employing parent formulation technique in combination with tractor description of GJMS operators we find a manifestly factorized form of the CHS wave operators for symmetric fields of arbitrary integer spin $s$ and gauge invariance of arbitrary order $t\leq s$. In the case of the usual Fradkin-Tseytlin fields $t=1$ this gives a systematic derivation of the factorization formulas known in the literature while for $t>1$ the explicit formulas were not known. We also relate the gauge invariance of the CHS fields to t…
The leitmotif of this paper is the question of whether four- and higher even-dimensional Conformal Gravities do have a Chern-Simons pedigree. We show that Weyl gravity can be obtained as dimensional reduction of a five-dimensional Chern-Simons action for a suitable (gauged-fixed, tractor-like) five-dimensional AdS connection. The gauge-fixing and dimensional reduction program admits a readily generalization to higher dimensions for the case of certain conformal gravities obtained by contractions of the Weyl tensor.
It is argued that in Weyl electrovacuum solutions the linear term in the metric cannot be eliminated just on grounds of gauge invariance. Its importance is stressed.
We study higher form Proca equations on Einstein manifolds with boundary data along conformal infinity. We solve these Laplace-type boundary problems formally, and to all orders, by constructing an operator which projects arbitrary forms to solutions. We also develop a product formula for solving these asymptotic problems in general. The central tools of our approach are (i) the conformal geometry of differential forms and the associated exterior tractor calculus, and (ii) a generalised notion of scale which encodes the connection between the underlying geometry and its boundary. The latter al…
A basic principle of physics is the freedom to locally choose any unit system when describing physical quantities. Its implementation amounts to treating Weyl invariance as a fundamental symmetry of all physical theories. In this thesis, we study the consequences of this "unit invariance" principle and find that it is a unifying one. Unit invariance is achieved by introducing a gauge field called the scale, designed to measure how unit systems vary from point to point. In fact, by a uniform and simple Weyl invariant coupling of scale and matter fields, we unify massless, massive, and partially…
We discuss the physics of {\it restricted Weyl invariance}, a symmetry of dimensionless actions in four dimensional curved space time. When we study a scalar field nonminimally coupled to gravity with Weyl(conformal) weight of $-1$ (i.e. scalar field with the usual two-derivative kinetic term), we find that dimensionless terms are either fully Weyl invariant or are Weyl invariant if the conformal factor $Ω(x)$ obeys the condition $g^{μν}\nabla_μ\nabla_νΩ=0$. We refer to the latter as {\it restricted Weyl invariance}. We show that all the dimensionless geometric terms such as $R^2$, $R_{μν}R^{μ…
Recently, it has been pointed out that dimensionless actions in four dimensional curved spacetime possess a symmetry which goes beyond scale invariance but is smaller than full Weyl invariance. This symmetry was dubbed {\it restricted Weyl invariance}. We show that starting with a restricted Weyl invariant action that includes a Higgs sector with no explicit mass, one can generate the Einstein-Hilbert action with cosmological constant and a Higgs mass. The model also contains an extra massless scalar field which couples to the Higgs field (and gravity). If the coupling of this extra scalar fie…
Scale-invariant actions in arbitrary dimensions are investigated in curved space to clarify the relation between scale-, Weyl- and conformal invariance on the classical level. The global Weyl-group is gauged. Then the class of actions is determined for which Weyl-gauging may be replaced by a suitable coupling to the curvature (Ricci gauging). It is shown that this class is exactly the class of actions which are conformally invariant in flat space. The procedure yields a simple algebraic criterion for conformal invariance and produces the improved energy-momentum tensor in conformally invariant…
We consider matter fields conformally coupled to a background metric and dilaton and describe in detail a quantization procedure and related renormalization group flow that preserve Weyl invariance. Even though the resulting effective action is Weyl-invariant, the trace anomaly is still present, with all its physical consequences. We discuss first the case of free matter and then extend the result to interacting matter. We also consider the case when the metric and dilaton are dynamical and gravitons enter in the loops.
We obtain scale-invariant scalar and tensor power spectra from a Weyl-invariant scalar-tensor theory in de Sitter spacetime. This implies that the Weyl-invariance guarantees to implement the scale-invariance of power spectrum in de Sitter spacetime. We establish a deep connection between the Weyl-invariance of the action and scale-invariance of power spectrum in de Sitter spacetime.
We consider a non-relativistic free scalar field theory with a type of anisotropic scale invariance in which the number of coordinates "scaling like time" is generically greater than one. We propose the Cartesian product of two curved spaces, the metric of each space being parameterized by the other space, as a notion of curved background to which the theory can be extended. We study this type of geometries, and find a family of extensions of the theory to curved backgrounds in which the anisotropic scale invariance is promoted to a local, Weyl-type symmetry.
The most general lagrangian describing spin 2 particles in flat spacetime and containing operators up to (mass) dimension 6 is carefully analyzed, determining the precise conditions for it to be invariant under linearized (transverse) diffeomorphisms, linearized Weyl rescalings, and conformal transformations.
The generalization of scale invariance when gravitational effects are considered is Weyl invariance, namely, invariance under (global or local) rescalings of the metric. In this work, we discuss in some details the implications of the fact that the value of the anomaly for the global Weyl invariant coupling of scalar fields to gravity is sensitive to the dynamics (or absence thereof) of the gravitational field.
A theory with a mass scale and yet Weyl invariant is presented. The theory is not invariant under all diffeomorphisms but only under transverse ones. This is the reason why Weyl invariance does not imply scale invariance in a free falling frame. Physical implications of this framework are discussed.
We examine some Weyl invariant cosmological models in the framework of generalized dilaton gravity, in which the action is made of a set of $N$ conformally coupled scalar fields. It will be shown that when the FRW ansatz for the spacetime metric is assumed, the Ward identity for conformal invariance guarantees that the gravitational equations hold whenever the scalar fields EM do so. It follows that any scale factor can solve the theory provided a non-trivial profile for a dilaton field. In particular, accelerated expansion is a natural solution to the full set of equations.
We show how Einstein-Cartan gravity can accommodate both global scale and local scale (Weyl) invariance. To this end, we construct a wide class of models with nonpropagaing torsion and a nonminimally coupled scalar field. In phenomenological applications the scalar field is associated with the Higgs boson. For global scale invariance, an additional field -- dilaton -- is needed to make the theory phenomenologically viable. In the case of the Weyl symmetry, the dilaton is spurious and the theory reduces to a sub-class of one-field models. In both scenarios of scale invariance, we derive an equi…
Equations for cosmological evolution are formulated in a Weyl invariant formalism to take into account possible Weyl anomalies. Near two dimensions, the renormalized cosmological term leads to a nonlocal energy-momentum tensor and a slowly decaying vacuum energy. A natural generalization to four dimensions implies a quantum modification of Einstein field equations at long distances. It offers a new perspective on time-dependence of couplings and naturalness with potentially far-reaching consequences for the cosmological constant problem, inflation, and dark energy.
It was argued recently that conformal invariance in flat spacetime implies Weyl invariance in a general curved background for unitary theories and possible anomalies in the Weyl variation of scalar operators are identified. We argue that generically unitarity alone is not sufficient for a conformal field theory to be Weyl invariant. Furthermore, we show explicitly that when a unitary conformal field theory couples to gravity in a Weyl invariant way, each primary scalar operator that is either relevant or marginal in the unitary conformal field theory corresponds to a Weyl-covariant operator in…
In this paper, we study the actions of the Weyl groups of the U duality groups for type IIA string theory toroidally compactified to all dimensions $D\ge 3$. We show how these Weyl groups implement permutations of the field strengths, and we discuss the Weyl group multiplets of all supersymmetric $p$-brane solitons.
In two-dimensional dilaton gravity theories, there may exist a global Weyl invariance which makes black hole spurious. If the global invariance and the local Weyl invariance of the matter coupling are intact at the quantum level, there is no Hawking radiation. We explicitly verify the absence of anomalies in these symmetries for the model proposed by Callan, Giddings, Harvey and Strominger. The crucial observation is that the conformal anomaly can be cohomologically trivial and so not truly anomalous in such dilaton gravity models.
The present work deals with two different but subtilely related kinds of conformal mappings: Weyl rescaling in $d>2$ dimensional spaces and SO(2,d) transformations. We express how the difference between the two can be compensated by diffeomorphic transformations. This is well known in the framework of String Theory but in the particular case of $d=2$ spaces. Indeed, the Polyakov formalism describes world-sheets in terms of two-dimensional conformal field theory. On the other hand, B. Zumino had shown that a classical four-dimensional Weyl-invariant field theory restricted to live in Minkowski …
We argue that conformal invariance in flat spacetime implies Weyl invariance in a general curved background metric for all unitary theories in spacetime dimensions $d \leq 10$. We also study possible curvature corrections to the Weyl transformations of operators, and show that these are absent for operators of sufficiently low dimensionality and spin. We find possible `anomalous' Weyl transformations proportional to the Weyl (Cotton) tensor for $d > 3$ ($d = 3$). The arguments are based on algebraic consistency conditions similar to the Wess-Zumino consistency conditions that classify possible…
We examine the local conformal invariance (Weyl invariance) in tensor-scalar theories used in recently proposed conformal cosmological models. We show that the Noether currents associated with Weyl invariance in these theories vanish. We assert that the corresponding Weyl symmetry does not have any dynamical role.
It is shown that the explicit calculation of the Wess-Zumino functional pertaining to the breaking term of the Weyl symmetry for the Einstein-Hilbert action allows to restore the Weyl symmetry by introducing the extra dilaton field as Goldstone field. Adding the Wess-Zumino counter-term to the Einstein-Hilbert action reproduces the usual Weyl invariant action used in standard literature. Further consideration might confer to the Einstein-Hilbert action a new status.
Pure $R^2$ gravity was considered originally to possess only global scale symmetry. It was later shown to have the larger restricted Weyl symmetry where it is invariant under the Weyl transformation $g_{μν} \to Ω^2(x)\, g_{μν}$ when the conformal factor $Ω(x)$ obeys the harmonic condition $\Box Ω(x)=0$. Restricted Weyl symmetry has an analog in gauge theory. Under a gauge transformation $A_μ\to A_μ + \frac{1}{e}\partial_μ f(x)$, the gauge-fixing term $(\partial_μA^μ)^2$ has a residual gauge symmetry when $\Box f=0$. In this paper, we consider scenarios where the symmetry of pure $R^2$ gravity …
It is shown that in the quadratic gravity based on Weyl's conformal geometry, the Planck mass scale can be generated from quantum effects of the gravitational field and the Weyl gauge field via the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism where a local scale symmetry, that is, conformal symmetry, is broken. At the same time, the Weyl gauge field acquires mass less than the Planck mass by absorbing the dilaton. The shape of the effective potential is almost flat owing to a gravitational character and high symmetries, so our model would provide an attractive model for the inflationary universe. We also presen…
We consider a globally neutral Lorentzian plasma as a possible remnant of a preinflationary stage of expansion and pose the problem of the suitable initial conditions for the evolution of the large-scale electromagnetic inhomogeneities. During the protoinflationary regime the Weyl invariance of the Ohmic current guarantees that the comoving conductivity is approximately constant. The subsequent breaking of Weyl invariance by the masses of the charge carriers drives the conductivity to zero. The newly derived conducting initial conditions for the amplification of large-scale magnetic fields are…
We study the theory of Weyl conformal gravity with matter degrees of freedom in a conformally invariant interaction. Specifically, we consider a triplet of scalar fields and SO(3) non-abelian gauge fields, i.e. the Georgi-Glashow model conformally coupled to Weyl gravity. We show that the equations of motion admit solutions spontaneously breaking the conformal symmetry and the gauge symmetry, providing a mechanism for supplying a scale in the theory. The vacuum solution corresponds to anti-de-Sitter space-time, while localized soliton solutions correspond to magnetic monopoles in asymptoticall…
Weyl invariant theories of scalars and gravity can generate all mass scales spontaneously, initiated by a dynamical process of "inertial spontaneous symmetry breaking" that does not involve a potential. This is dictated by the structure of the Weyl current, $K_μ$, and a cosmological phase during which the universe expands and the Einstein-Hilbert effective action is formed. Maintaining exact Weyl invariance in the renormalised quantum theory is straightforward when renormalisation conditions are referred back to the VEV's of fields in the action of the theory, which implies a conserved Weyl cu…
We consider conformally invariant form of the actions in Einstein, Weyl, Einstein-Cartan and Einstein-Cartan-Weyl space in general dimensions($>2$) and investigate the relations among them. In Weyl space, the observational consistency condition for the vector field determining non-metricity of the connection can be obtained from the equation of motion. In Einstein-Cartan space a similar role is played by the vector part of the torsion tensor. We consider the case where the trace part of the torsion is the Kalb-Ramond type of field. In this case, we express conformally invariant action in terms…
Weyl's scale invariance is introduced as an additional local symmetry in the standard model of electroweak interactions. An inevitable consequence is the introduction of general relativity coupled to scalar fields a la Dirac and an additional vector particle we call the Weylon. Once Weyl's scale invariance is broken, the phenomenon (a) generates Newton's gravitational constant G_N and (b) triggers the conventional spontaneous symmetry breaking mechanism that results in masses for all the fermions and bosons. The scale at which Weyl's scale symmetry breaks is of order Planck mass. If right-hand…
We revisit Weyl invariance of string theories in generalized supergravity backgrounds. In the previous work arXiv:1703.09213, a possible counterterm was constructed, but it seems to be a point of controversy in some literatures whether it is non-local or not. To settle down this issue, we show that the counterterm may be local and exactly cancels out the one-loop trace anomaly in generalized supergravity backgrounds.
We show that in a quadratic gravity based on Weyl's conformal geometry, the Planck mass scale can be generated from quantum effects of the gravitational field and the Weyl gauge field via the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism where a local scale symmetry is broken. At the same time, the Weyl gauge field acquires a mass less than the Planck mass by absorbing the scalar graviton. The shape of the effective potential is almost flat owing to a gravitational character and high symmetries, so our model would provide for an attractive model for the inflationary universe. We also present a toy model showing …
We propose a superspace formulation for the Weyl multiplet of N=1 conformal supergravity in five dimensions. The corresponding superspace constraints are invariant under super-Weyl transformations generated by a real scalar parameter. The minimal supergravity multiplet, which was introduced by Howe in 1981, emerges if one couples the Weyl multiplet to an Abelian vector multiplet and then breaks the super-Weyl invariance by imposing the gauge condition W=1, with W the field strength of the vector multiplet. The geometry of superspace is shown to allow the existence of a large family of off-shel…
In this work, we investigate a theory of linear Weyl gravity coupled to a scalar field and study the scenario in which Lorentz symmetry is broken by a non-vanishing vacuum expectation value of the Weyl field in the flat space limit after Weyl symmetry breaking. We show that a $CPT$-odd Lorentz-violating interaction is generated after symmetry breaking. Features of different symmetry-broken phases and their dependence on the spacetime character of the generated Lorentz-violating background are discussed. Also, we analyze the naturalness of the theory by showing that the light mass scale is prot…
In the first part, we discuss the interplay between local scale invariance and metric-affine degrees of freedom from few distinct points of view. We argue, rather generally, that the gauging of Weyl symmetry is a natural byproduct of requiring that scale invariance is a symmetry of a gravitational theory that is based on a metric and on an independent affine structure degrees of freedom. In the second part, we compute the Nöther identities associated with all the gauge symmetries, including Weyl, Lorentz and diffeomorphisms invariances, for general actions with matter degrees of freedom, explo…
A new method for the construction of conformally invariant equations in an arbitrary four dimensional (pseudo-) Riemannian space is presented. This method uses the Weyl geometry as a tool and exploits the natural conformal invariance we can build in the framework of this geometry. Indeed, working in a Weyl space, using the Weyl covariant derivative and the intrinsic Weylian geometrical tensors, all conformally homogeneous operators will be conformally invariant, as will the equations they determine. A Weyl space is defined by two independent objects: the metric tensor $g_{μν}$ and the Weyl vec…
The higher spin interaction currents for the conformally coupled scalar in $AdS_{4}$ space for both regular and irregular boundary condition corresponding to the free and interacting critical point of the boundary O(N) sigma model are constructed. The explicit form of the linearized interaction of the scalar and spin two and four gauge fields in the $AdS_{D}$ space using Noether's procedure for the corresponding spin two and four linearized gauge and generalized Weyl transformations are obtained.
We consider a simple but generic model of gravity where Weyl--invariance is realized thanks to the presence of a gauge field for dilatations. We quantize the theory by suitably defining renormalization group flows that describe the integration of successive momentum shells, in such a way that Weyl--invariance is maintained in the flow. When the gauge fields are massless the theory has, in addition to Weyl invariance, an abelian gauge symmetry. According to the definition of the cutoff, the flow can break or preserve this extended symmetry. We discuss the fixed points of these flows.
The constraint structure of 2D-gravity with the Weyl and area-preserving diffeomorphism invariances is analysed in the ADM formulation. It is found that when the area-preserving diffeomorphism constraints are kept, the usual conformal gauge does not exist, whereas there is the possibility to choose the so-called ``quasi-light-cone'' gauge, in which besides the area-preserving diffeomorphism invariance, the reduced Lagrangian also possesses the SL(2,R) residual symmetry. The string-like approach is applied to quantise this model, but a fictitious non-zero central charge in the Virasoro algebra …
We consider the semiclassical dynamics of CGHS black holes with a Weyl-invariant effective action for conformal matter. The trace anomaly of Polyakov effective action is converted into the Virasoro anomaly thus leading to the same flux of Hawking radiation. The covariance of semiclassical equations can be restored through a non-local redefinition of the metric-dilaton fields. The resulting theory turns out to be equivalent to the RST model. This provides a mechanism to solve semiclassical equations of 2D dilaton gravity coupled to conformal matter for classically soluble models.
In the theories of gravity with non-minimally coupled scalar fields there are "mavericks" -- unexpected solutions with odd properties, e.g., black holes with scalar hair in theories with scalar potential bounded from below. Probably the most famous example is Bocharova-Bronnikov-Melnikov-Bekenstein (BBMB) black hole solution in a theory with a scalar field conformally coupled to the gravity and with vanishing potential. Its existence naively violates no-hair conjecture without violating no-hair theorems because of the singular behavior of the scalar field at the horizon. Despite being discover…
In a new Weyl 2-spinor approach to Non abelian Gauge Theories, starting with the local U(1) Gauge group of a previous work, we study now the SU(3) case corresponding to quarks (antiquarks) interacting with color fields. The principal difference with the conventional approach is that particle-field interactions are not described by means of potentials but by the field strength magnitudes. Some analytical expressions showing similarities with electrodynamics are obtained. Classical equations that describe the behavior of quarks under gluon fields might be in principle applied to the quark-gluon …
We analyze gravitational theories with quadratic curvature terms, including the case of conformally invariant Weyl gravity, motivated by the intention to find a renormalizable theory of gravity in the ultraviolet region, yet yielding general relativity at long distances. In the Hamiltonian formulation of Weyl gravity, the number of local constraints is equal to the number of unstable directions in phase space, which in principle could be sufficient for eliminating the unstable degrees of freedom in the full nonlinear theory. All the other theories of quadratic type are unstable -- a problem ap…
It has recently been shown that a set of the generalized type IIB supergravity equations follows from the requirement of kappa symmetry of the type IIB Green-Schwarz superstring theory defined on an arbitrary background. In this paper, we show that the whole bosonic part of the generalized type II supergravity equations can be reproduced from the T-duality covariant equations of motion of the double field theory by choosing a non-standard solution of the strong constraint. Then, by using the doubled formalism, we show the Weyl invariance of the bosonic string sigma model on a generalized gravi…
We introduce Weyl's scale invariance as an additional local symmetry in the standard model of electroweak interactions. An inevitable consequence is the introduction of general relativity coupled to scalar fields a la Dirac and an additional vector particle we call the Weylon. We show that once Weyl's scale invariance is broken, the phenomenon (a) generates Newton's gravitational constant G_N and (b) triggers spontaneous symmetry breaking in the normal manner resulting in masses for the conventional fermions and bosons. The scale at which Weyl's scale symmetry breaks is of order Planck mass. I…
A mechanism to find different Weyl invariant p-branes and Dp-branes actions is explained. Our procedure clarifies the Weyl invariance for such systems. Besides, by considering gravity-dilaton effective action in higher dimensions we also derive a Weyl invariant action for p-branes. We argue that this derivation provides a geometrical scenario for the Weyl invariance of p-branes. Our considerations can be extended to the case of super-p-branes.
Here we show that local scale invariance -- invariance under Weyl rescalings -- may safely coexist with broken electroweak symmetry if assume the Weyl geometric theory to govern the affine structure of spacetime. We find that within the resulting scale invariant theory of gravity cosmological inflation is enough to explain the large hierarchy between the Higgs and Planck masses.
The fundamental string length, which is an essential part of string theory, explicitly breaks scale invariance. However, in field theory we demonstrated recently that the gravitational constant, which is directly related to the string length, can be promoted to a dynamical field if the standard model coupled to gravity (SM+GR) is lifted to a locally scale (Weyl) invariant theory. The higher gauge symmetry reveals previously unknown field patches whose inclusion turn the classically conformally invariant SM+GR into a geodesically complete theory with new cosmological and possibly further physic…
We revisit a particular ghost-free bimetric model which is related to both partial masslessness (PM) and conformal gravity. Linearly, the model propagates six instead of seven degrees of freedom not only around de Sitter but also around flat spacetime. Nonlinearly, the equations of motion can be recast in the form of expansions in powers of curvatures, and exhibit a remarkable amount of structure. In this form, the equations are shown to be invariant under scalar gauge transformations, at least up to six orders in derivatives, the lowest order term being a Weyl scaling of the metrics. The term…
We study a system of $n$ Abelian vector fields coupled to $\frac 12 n(n+1)$ complex scalars parametrising the Hermitian symmetric space $\mathsf{Sp}(2n, {\mathbb R})/ \mathsf{U}(n)$. This model is Weyl invariant and possesses the maximal non-compact duality group $\mathsf{Sp}(2n, {\mathbb R})$. Although both symmetries are anomalous in the quantum theory, they should be respected by the logarithmic divergent term (the ``induced action'') of the effective action obtained by integrating out the vector fields. We compute this induced action and demonstrate its Weyl and $\mathsf{Sp}(2n, {\mathbb R…
