In this paper, we provide a vacuum solution with torsion in quadratic Riemann-curvature gravity. Physically, the solution means that vacuum can have a nonzero vacuum field with large torsion. We show that the Einstein-Hilbert action can be derived if we expand the quadratic curvature of the Lagrangian in a torsion-free Riemannian space-time around a nonzero vacuum field. We also show that the cosmological constant caused by a nonzero vacuum field is equal to zero.
The path integral for higher-derivative quantum gravity with torsion is considered. Applying the methods of two-dimensional quantum gravity, this path integral is analyzed in the limit of conformally self-dual metrics. A scaling law for fixed-volume geometry is obtained.
We show from first principles, using explicitly invariant Pauli-Villars regularization of chiral fermions, that the Nieh-Yan form does contribute to the Adler-Bell-Jackiw (ABJ) anomaly for spacetimes with generic torsion, and comment on some of the implications. There are a number of interesting and important differences with the usual ABJ contributions in the absence of torsion. For dimensional reasons, the Nieh-Yan contribution is proportional to the square of the regulator mass. In spacetimes with flat vierbein but non-trivial torsion, the associated diagrams are actually vacuum polarizatio…
We present the most general quadratic curvature action with torsion including infinite covariant derivatives and study its implications around the Minkowski background via the Palatini approach. Provided the torsion is solely given by the background axial field, the metric and torsion are shown to decouple, and both of them can be made ghost and singularity free for a fermionic source.
In (1+2)-dimensional Poincaré gauge gravity, we start from a Lagrangian depending on torsion and curvature which includes additionally {\em translational} and {\em Lorentzian} Chern-Simons terms. Limiting ourselves to to a specific subcase, the Mielke-Baekler (MB) model, we derive the corresponding field equations (of Einstein-Cartan-Chern-Simons type) and find the general vacuum solution. We determine the properties of this solution, in particular its mass and its angular momentum. For vanishing torsion, we recover the BTZ-solution. We also derive the general conformally flat vacuum solution …
The effective potential which describes the conformal dynamics of quantum gravity with torsion is discussed. The phase transitions induced by the combination of torsion and curvature are investigated. The mechanism for fixing the vacuum expectation values of the metric and torsion is presented.
In this short review, we discuss the approach of the commutator algebra of covariant derivative to analyse the gravitational theories, starting from the standard Einstein's general theory of relativity and focusing on the Rastall theory. After that, we discuss the important role of the torsion in this mathematical framework. In the Appendix of the paper we analyse the importance of the nascent gravitational wave astronomy as a tool to discriminate among the general theory of relativity and alternative theories of gravity.
The conformal anomaly in curved spacetime with antisymmetric torsion is reconsidered, taking into account new important details. We formulate, for the first time, the covariant solution of the anomaly-induced effective action. The covariant effective action includes local terms corresponding to total derivatives in the conformal anomaly. The contribution of massless fermions to these terms is characterized by multiplicative anomaly, coming from two different choices of doubling for the spinor operator. On the other hand, the nonlocal part of anomaly-induced action is free of ambiguities and ad…
We study and discuss some of the consequences of the inclusion of torsion in 3D Einstein-Chern-Simons gravity. Torsion may trigger the excitation of non-physical modes in the spectrum. Higher-derivative terms are then added up and tree-level unitarity is contemplated.
We discuss the existence of de Sitter inflationary solutions for the string-inspired fourth-derivative gravity theories with dilaton field. We consider a space-time of arbitrary dimension D and an arbitrary parametrization of the target space metric. The specific features of the theory in dimension D=4 and those of the special ghost-free parametrization of the metric are found. We also consider similar string-inspired theories with torsion and construct an inflationary solution with torsion and dilaton for D=4. The stability of the inflationary solutions is also investigated.
Regularization of quantum field theories introduces a mass scale which breaks axial rotational and scaling invariances. We demonstrate from first principles that axial torsion and torsion trace modes have non-transverse vacuum polarization tensors, and become massive as a result. The underlying reasons are similar to those responsible for the Adler-Bell-Jackiw (ABJ) and scaling anomalies. Since these are the only torsion components that can couple minimally to spin 1/2 particles, the anomalous generation of masses for these modes, naturally of the order of the regulator scale, may help to expl…
The BRS transformations for gravity with torsion are discussed by using the Maurer-Cartan horizontality conditions. With the help of an operator $\d$ which allows to decompose the exterior space-time derivative as a BRS commutator we solve the Wess-Zumino consistency condition corresponding to invariant Lagrangians and anomalies.
We investigate the gauge/gravity duality between the ${\cal N} = 6$ mass-deformed ABJ theory with U$_k(N+l)\times$U$_{-k}(N)$ gauge symmetry and the 11-dimensional supergravity on LLM geometries with SO(2,1)$\times$SO(4)/${\mathbb Z}_k\times$SO(4)/${\mathbb Z}_k$ isometry and the discrete torsion $l$. For chiral primary operators with conformal dimensions $Δ=1,2$, we obtain the exact vacuum expectation values using the holographic method in 11-dimensional supergravity and show that the results depend on the shapes of droplet pictures in LLM geometries. The $\frac{l}{\sqrt{N}}$ contributions fr…
We attempt to build systematically the low-energy effective Lagrangian for the Einstein--Cartan formulation of gravity theory that generally includes the torsion field. We list all invariant action terms in certain given order; some of the invariants are new. We show that in the leading order the fermion action with torsion possesses additional U(1)_L x U(1)_R gauge symmetry, with 4+4 components of the torsion (out of the general 24) playing the role of Abelian gauge bosons. The bosonic action quadratic in torsion gives masses to those gauge bosons. Integrating out torsion one obtains a point-…
We construct $F(T,\left(\nabla{T}\right)^2,\Box {T})$ gravitational modifications, which are novel classes of modified theories arising from higher-derivative torsional terms in the action, and are different than their curvature analogue. Applying them in a cosmological framework we obtain an effective dark energy sector that comprises of the novel torsional contributions. We perform a detailed dynamical analysis for two specific examples, extracting the stable late-time solutions and calculating the corresponding observables. We show that the thermal history of the universe can be reproduced,…
In this paper new exact solutions in eight dimensional Lovelock theory will be presented. These solutions are vacuum static wormhole, black hole and generalized Bertotti-Robinson space-times with nontrivial torsion. All the solutions have a cross product structure of the type $M_{5}\times Σ_{3} $ where $M_{5}$ is a five dimensional manifold and $Σ_{3}$ a compact constant curvature manifold. The wormhole is the first example of a smooth vacuum static Lovelock wormhole which is neither Chern-Simons nor Born-Infeld. It will be also discussed how the presence of torsion affects the "navigableness"…
We study the vacuum structures of four-dimensional $\mathcal{N} = 1$ old minimal supergravity with higher derivative corrections. We find that $\mathcal{N} = 1$ supergravity with Riemann curvature square corrections and higher derivative matter chiral multiplets induces a non-trivial de Sitter vacuum, even in the absence of superpotentials. This vacuum generically breaks supersymmetry. We show that the auxiliary fields in the gravity and the chiral multiples play important roles to generate a potential in supersymmetric higher derivative theories.
The BRST transformations for the Yang-Mills gauge fields in the presence of gravity with torsion are discussed by using the so-called Maurer-Cartan horizontality conditions. With the help of an operator $\d$ which allows to decompose the exterior spacetime derivative as a BRST commutator we solve the Wess-Zumino consistency condition corresponding to invariant Chern-Simons terms and gauge anomalies.
We show that, in the first order gravity theory coupled to axions, the instanton number of the Giddings-Strominger wormhole can be interpreted as the Nieh-Yan topological index. The axion charge of the baby universes is quantized in terms of the Nieh-Yan integers. Tunneling between universes of different Nieh-Yan charges implies a nonperturbative vacuum state. The associated topological vacuum angle can be identified with the Barbero-Immirzi parameter.
A non-minimal photon-torsion axial coupling in the quantum electrodynamics (QED) framework is considered. The geometrical optics in Riemann-Cartan spacetime is considering and a plane wave expansion of the electromagnetic vector potential is considered leading to a set of the equations for the ray congruence. Since we are interested mainly on the torsion effects in this first report we just consider the Riemann-flat case composed of the Minkowskian spacetime with torsion. It is also shown that in torsionic de Sitter background the vacuum polarisation does alter the propagation of individual ph…
f(R)-gravity with geometric torsion (not related to any spin fluid) is considered in a cosmological context. We derive the field equations in vacuum and in presence of perfect-fluid matter and discuss the related cosmological models. Torsion vanishes in vacuum for almost all arbitrary functions f(R) leading to standard General Relativity. Only for f(R)=R^{2}, torsion gives contribution in the vacuum leading to an accelerated behavior . When material sources are considered, we find that the torsion tensor is different from zero even with spinless material sources. This tensor is related to the …
A geometric formalism is developed which allows to describe the non-linear regime of higher-spin gravity emerging on a cosmological quantum space-time in the IKKT matrix model. The vacuum solutions are Ricci-flat up to an effective vacuum energy-momentum tensor quadratic in the torsion, which arises from a Weitzenböck-type higher spin connection. Torsion is expected to be significant only at cosmic scales and around very massive objects, and could behave like dark matter. A non-linear equation for the torsion tensor is found, which encodes the Yang-Mills equations of the matrix model. The metr…
The BRST transformations for gravity with torsion including Weyl symmetry are discussed by using the so-called Maurer-Cartan horizontality conditions. Also the coupling of scalar matter fields to gravity is incorporated in this analysis. With the help of an operator $\d$ which allows to decompose the exterior space-time derivative as a BRST commutator we solve the Wess-Zumino consistency condition corresponding to invariant Lagrangians and anomalies for the cases with and without Weyl symmetry.
Regularization of quantum field theories introduces a mass scale which breaks axial rotational and scaling invariances. We demonstrate from first principles that axial torsion and torsion trace modes have non-transverse vacuum polarization tensors, and become massive as a result. The underlying reasons are similar to those responsible for the Adler-Bell-Jackiw (ABJ) and scaling anomalies. Since these are the only torsion components that can couple minimally to spin 1/2 particles, the anomalous generation of masses for these modes, naturally of the order of the regulator scale, may help to expl…
The gauged Lorentz theory with torsion has been argued to have an effective theory whose non-trivial background is responsible for background gravitational curvature if torsion is treated as a quantum-mechanical variable against a background of constant curvature. We use the CDG decomposition to argue that such a background can be found without including torsion. Adapting our previously published Clairaut-based treatment of QCD, we go on to study the implications for second quantisation.
In the classical Higgsless $M^4\times S^3\times S^1$ Kaluza-Klein gauge-theory vacuum, torsion-induced loss of the $SU(2)\times U(1)$ left-invariance generates a gauge-boson mass term, in co-existence with the gauge-field kinetic term in the vacuum Hilbert-Einstein action. This is compulsory in the sense that having one of these terms without the other would mean violation of basic theorems on holonomy. The effect could be lost only at the very high massless-EW energy scale, where the ground-state manifold approach for the gauge-theory vacuum would be inapplicable. Created, as they are, from a…
Large N matrices can describe covariant derivatives in curved space. Applying this interpretation to the IKKT matrix model, the field equation of gravity is derived from the matrix equation of motion. We study classical solutions of this field equation with torsion degrees of freedom in empty spacetime. Time dependent solutions with homogeneity and isotropy, and time independent solutions with spherical symmetry are investigated under particular settings of torsions.
We study gravitational waves with torsion as exact vacuum solutions of three-dimensional gravity with propagating torsion. The new solutions are a natural generalization of the plane-fronted gravitational waves in general relativity with a cosmological constant, in the presence of matter.
We study the properties of gravity and bulk fields living in a torsion warped braneworld. The torsion is driven by a background vector whose norm provides a source for the bulk cosmological constant. For a vector as the derivative of a scalar field, we find new isotropic and anisotropic thick brane geometries. We analyse the features of bosonic and fermionic fields in this isotropic and in standing wave scenarios. The background vector provides nonminimal coupling between the field and the geometry leading to modifications in the Kaluza-Klein states. The spinor connection is modified by the to…
Starting from the generalized pp waves that are exact vacuum solutions of general relativity with a cosmological constant, we construct a new family of exact vacuum solutions of Poincaré gauge theory, the generalized pp waves with torsion. The ansatz for torsion is chosen in accordance with the wave nature of the solutions. For a subfamily of these solutions, the metric is dynamically determined by the torsion.
We start from a new theory (discussed earlier) in which the arena for physics is not spacetime, but its straightforward extension-the so called Clifford space ($C$-space), a manifold of points, lines, areas, etc..; physical quantities are Clifford algebra valued objects, called polyvectors. This provides a natural framework for description of supersymmetry, since spinors are just left or right minimal ideals of Clifford algebra. The geometry of curved $C$-space is investigated. It is shown that the curvature in $C$-space contains higher orders of the curvature in the underlying ordinary space.…
In this paper we consider a class of static spacetimes in higher dimensional ($D \ge 4$) scalar-torsion theories with non-minimal derivative coupling and the scalar potential turned on. The spacetime is conformal to a product space of a two-surface and a $(D-2)$-dimensional submanifold. Analyzing the equations of motion in the theory we find that the $(D-2)$-dimensional submanifold has to admit constant triplet structures in which the torsion scalar is one of them. This implies that these equations of motion can be simplified into a single highly non-linear ordinary differential equation calle…
The most general four-derivative Unitary String Effective Action with Torsion and Stringy-Running-Vacuum-Model Inflation: Old ideas from a modern perspective
National Technical University of Athens（雅典国立技术大学）；King’s College London（伦敦国王学院）
We discuss the theoretical basis for the search of the possible experimental manifestations of the torsion field at low energies. First, the quantum field theory in an external gravitational field with torsion is reviewed. The renormalizability requires the nonminimal interaction of torsion with spinor and scalar (Higgs) fields. The Pauli-like equation contains new torsion-dependent terms which have a different structure as compared with the standard electromagnetic ones. The same concerns the nonrelativistic equations for spin-${1}/{2}$ particle in an external torsion and electromagnetic fiel…
The identity of classical motion is established for two physically different models, one of which is the relativistic particle with torsion, whose action contains higher derivatives and which is the effective system for the statistically charged particle interacting with the Chern-Simons U(1) gauge field, and another is the (2+1)-dimensional relativistic charged particle in external constant electromagnetic field.
Second-order-derivative plus fourth-order-derivative gravity is the ultraviolet completion of second-order-derivative quantum Einstein gravity. While it achieves renormalizability through states of negative Dirac norm, the unitarity violation that this would entail can be postponed to Planck energies. As we show in this paper the theory has a different problem, one that occurs at all energy scales, namely that the Dirac norm of the vacuum of the theory is not finite. To establish this we present a procedure for determining the norm of the vacuum in any quantum field theory. With the Dirac norm…
In this article we use an electromagnetic Lagrangian constructed so as to include dispersive effects in the description of an electromagnetic wave propagating in the Quantum Electrodynamic Vacuum. This Lagrangian is Lorentz invariant, includes contributions up to six powers in the electromagnetic fields and involves both fields and their first derivatives. Conceptual limitations inherent to the use of this higher derivative Lagrangian approach are discussed. We consider the one-dimensional spatial limit and obtain an exact solution of the nonlinear wave equation recovering the Korteveg-de Vrie…
We show that for a string moving in a background consisting of maximally symmetric gravity, dilaton field and second rank antisymmetric tensor field, the $O(d) \otimes O(d)$ transformation on the vacuum solutions gives inequivalent solutions that are not maximally symmetric. We then show that the usual physical meaning of maximal symmetry can be made to remain unaltered even if torsion is present and illustrate this through two toy models by determining the torsion fields, the metric and Killing vectors. Finally we show that under the $O(d) \otimes O(d)$ transformation this generalised maximal…
We study the general parity-preserving model of three-dimensional gravity with propagating torsion, with a focus on its nonlinear dynamics in the AdS sector. The model is shown to posses the black hole with torsion as a vacuum solution, provided we adopt certain restrictions on its coupling constants. The canonical analysis in the AdS asymptotic region yields the conserved charges of the black hole and the central charges of the asymptotic conformal symmetry.
In this manuscript we will present the theoretical framework of the recently proposed infinite derivative theory of gravity with a non-symmetric connection. We will explicitly derive the field equations at the linear level and obtain new solutions with a non-trivial form of the torsion tensor in the presence of a fermionic source, and show that these solutions are both ghost and singularity-free.
Using the canonical formalism, we study the asymptotic symmetries of the topological 3-dimensional gravity with torsion. In the anti-de Sitter sector, the symmetries are realized by two independent Virasoro algebras with classical central charges. In the simple case of the teleparallel vacuum geometry, the central charges are equal to each other and have the same value as in general relativity, while in the general Riemann-Cartan geometry, they become different.
This paper presents an alternative {\it relativistic nonlinear} approach to the vacuum case of classical electrodynamics. Our view is based on the understanding that the corresponding differential equations should be dynamical in nature. So, they must represent local energy-momentum balance relations. Formally, the new equations are in terms of appropriately extended Lie derivative of $\mathbb{R}^2$-valued differential 2-form along a $\mathbb{R}^2$-valued 2-vector on Minkowski space-time.
We show that for generic stationary spacetime and specific Killing fields, Wald's approach for quasi-local energy could be generalized to the first order formalism straightforwardly without introducing the Lorentz-Lie derivative. Via this approach, we derive the general formula for the black hole entropy in three dimensional torsional Mielke-Baekler gravity, reproducing precisely the total energy, the angular momentum as well as the black hole entropy for the BTZ-like solutions.
We studied spherically symmetric solutions in scalar-torsion gravity theories in which a scalar field is coupled to torsion with a derivative coupling. We obtained the general field equations from which we extracted a decoupled master equation, the solution of which leads to the specification of all other unknown functions. We first obtained an exact solution which represents a new wormhole-like solution dressed with a regular scalar field. Then, we found large distance linearized spherically symmetric solutions in which the space asymptotically is AdS.
We discuss vacuum condensates associated with emergent QED and with torsion, as well as the possible role of the Kodama wave function in quantum cosmology.
Regularization of Gauss-Bonnet Gravity in Riemann-Cartan Geometry
School of Fundamental Physics and Mathematical Sciences, Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, UCAS（基础物理与数学科学学院，杭州高等研究院，UCAS）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院理论物理研究所）；Department of Physics and Synergetic Innovation Center for Quantum Effects and Applications, Hunan Normal University（湖南师范大学物理与量子效应及应用协同创新中心）
In this paper, we reassess the issue of deriving the propagators and identifying the spectrum of excitations associated to the vielbein and spin connection of (1+2)-D gravity in the presence of dynamical torsion, while working in the first-order formulation. A number of peculiarities is pointed out whenever the Chern-Simons term is taken into account along with a combination of bilinear terms in the torsion tensor. We present a procedure to derive the full set of propagators, based on an algebra of enlarged spin-type operators, and we discuss under which conditions the poles of the tree-level …
We investigate the effective action of 2+1 dimensional charged spin 1/2 fermions and spin 0 bosons in the presence of a $U(1)$ gauge field. We evaluate terms in an expansion up to second order in derivatives of the field strength, but exactly in the mass parameter and in the magnitude of the nonvanishing constant field strength. We find that in a strong uniform magnetic field background, space-derivative terms lower the energy, and there arises an instability toward inhomogeneous magnetic fields.
Teleparallel geometry utilizes Weitzenböck connection which has nontrivial torsion but no curvature and does not directly follow from the metric like Levi-Civita connection. In extended teleparallel theories, for instance in $f(T)$ or scalar-torsion gravity, the connection must obey its antisymmetric field equations. So far only a few analytic solutions were known. In this note we solve the $f(T,ϕ)$ gravity antisymmetric vacuum field equations for a generic rotating tetrad ansatz in Weyl canonical coordinates, and find the corresponding spin connection coefficients. By a coordinate transformat…
We construct two classes of higher-derivative supergravity theories generalizing Einstein supergravity. We explore their dynamical content as well as their vacuum structure. The first class is found to be equivalent to Einstein supergravity coupled to a single chiral superfield. It has a unique stable vacuum solution except in a special case, when it becomes identical to a simple no-scale theory. The second class is found to be equivalent to Einstein supergravity coupled to two chiral superfields and has a richer vacuum structure. It is demonstrated that theories of the second class can posses…
This paper reviews the Einstein Cartan theory (ECT), the famous extension of general relativity (GR) in presence of spacetime torsion. The vacuum equations are derived step by step. Vielbein formulation is discussed for determining the field equations in presence of matter. This review would be easily comprehensible for any student familiar with general relativity. Further, ECT is used to describe superstrings with intrinsic torsion, assuming a $D_p$-brane in presence of a curved background of the NS-NS Kalb-Ramond field. D-brane worldvolume is a flat spacetime governed by the Dirac-Born-Infel…
We present a simple and natural way to derive the observed small, positive cosmological constant from the gravitational interaction of condensing fermions. In the Riemann-Cartan spacetime, torsion gives rise to the axial-axial four-fermion interaction term in the Dirac Lagrangian for spinor fields. We show that this nonlinear term acts like a cosmological constant if these fields have a nonzero vacuum expectation value. For quark fields in QCD, such a torsion-induced cosmological constant is positive and its energy scale is only about 8 times larger than the observed value. Adding leptons to t…
The interaction of the light with propagating axial torsion fields in the presence of an external magnetic field has been investigated. Axial torsion fields appearing in higher derivative quantum gravity possess two states, with spin one and zero, with different masses. The torsion field with spin-0 state is a ghost that can be removed if its mass is infinite. We investigate the possibility when the light mixes with the torsion fields resulting in the effect of vacuum birefringence and dichroism. The expressions for ellipticity and the rotation of light polarization axis depending on the coupl…
