Arbitrary diffeomorphically invariant metric-torsion theories of gravity are considered. It is assumed that Lagrangians of such theories contain derivatives of field variables (tensor densities of arbitrary ranks and weights) up to a second order only. The generalized Klein-Noether methods for constructing manifestly covariant identities and conserved quantities are developed. Manifestly covariant expressions are constructed without including auxiliary structures like a background metric. In the Riemann-Cartan space, the following \emph{manifestly generally covariant results} are presented: (a) The complete generalized system of differential identities (the Klein-Noether identities) is obtained. (b) The generalized currents of three types depending on an arbitrary vector field displacements are constructed: they are the canonical Noether current, symmetrized Belinfante current and identically conserved Hilbert-Bergmann current. In particular, it is stated that the symmetrized Belinfante current does not depend on divergences in the Lagrangian. (c) The generalized boundary Klein theorem (third Noether theorem) is proved. (d) The construction of the generalized superpotential is presented in details, and questions related to its ambiguities are analyzed.
We offer a mathematical toolkit for the study of waves propagating on a background manifold with nonvanishing torsion. Examples include electromagnetic and gravitational waves on a spacetime with torsion. The toolkit comprises generalized versions of the Lichnerowicz-de Rham and the Beltrami wave operators, and the Weitzenböck identity relating them on Riemann-Cartan geometries. The construction applies to any field belonging to a matrix representation of a Lie (super) algebra containing an $\mathfrak{so}$ subalgebra. Using these tools, we analyze the propagation of different massless waves in…
The present paper continues the work of the authors [arXiv:1306.6887 [gr-qc]]. Here, we study generally covariant metric-torsion theories of gravity presented more concretely, setting that their Lagrangians are \emph{manifestly} generally covariant scalars. It is assumed that Lagrangians depend on metric tensor, curvature tensor, torsion tensor and its first and second covariant derivatives, besides, on an arbitrary set of other tensor (matter) fields and their first and second covariant derivatives. Thus, both the standard minimal coupling with the Riemann-Cartan geometry and non-minimal coup…
We suggest a novel extension to the Kaluza-Klein scheme that allows us to obtain consistently all SU(n) Einstein-Yang-Mills theories. This construction is based on allowing the five-dimensional spacetime to carry some non-vanishing torsion; however, the four-dimensional spacetime remains intrinsically torsion-free.
Basic aspects of the AdS/CFT correspondence are studied in the framework of 3-dimensional gravity with torsion. After choosing a consistent holographic ansatz, we formulate an improved approach to the Noether--Ward identities for the boundary theory. The method is applied first to the topological Mielke--Baekler model, and then to the more interesting (parity-preserving) 3-dimensional gravity with propagating torsion. In both cases, we find the finite holographic energy-momentum and spin currents and obtain the associated (anomalous) Noether--Ward identities.
Torsions, curvatures, structure equations and Bianchi identities for locally anisotropic superspaces (containing as particular cases different supersymmetric extensions and prolongations of Riemann, Finsler, Lagrange and Kaluza--Klein spaces) are investigated.
Scalar-tensor gravity theories with a nonminimal Gauss-Bonnet coupling typically lead to an anomalous propagation speed for gravitational waves, and have therefore been tightly constrained by multimessenger observations such as GW170817/GRB170817A. In this paper we show that this is not a general feature of scalar-tensor theories, but rather a consequence of assuming that spacetime torsion vanishes identically. At least for the case of a nonminimal Gauss-Bonnet coupling, removing the torsionless condition restores the canonical dispersion relation and therefore the correct propagation speed fo…
A linear Lorentz connection has always two fundamental derived characteristics: curvature and torsion. The latter is assumed to vanish in general relativity. Three gravitational models involving non-vanishing torsion are examined: teleparallel gravity, Einstein-Cartan, and new general relativity. Their dependability is critically examined. Although a final answer can only be given by experience, it is argued that teleparallel gravity provides the most consistent approach.
Gravitational stability of torsion and inflaton field in a four-dimensional spacetime de Sitter solution in scalar-tensor cosmology where Cartan torsion propagates is investigated in detail. Inflaton and torsion evolution equations are derived by making use of a Lagrangean method. Stable and unstable modes for torsion and inflatons are found to be dependent of the background torsion and inflaton fields. Present astrophysical observations favour a stable mode for torsion since this would explain why no relic torsion imprint has been found on the Cosmic Background Radiation in the universe.
We present a review of some recent models of gravitation theory with propagating torsion based on the use of a torsion-dilaton field and propose one more model of this type which promises to be more realistic. A proper universal self-consistent minimal action principle yields the properties of this model and predicts the interactions of torsion-dilaton field with the real matter. The new model may be compatible with the string models with dilaton field and gives a novel interpretation of the dilaton as a part of the space-time torsion. A relation with some recent models of dilatonic gravity is…
In this paper we show that in the presence of torsion and a metric with an antisymmetric part one can construct a gravitational analog of Faraday's law of electromagnetism.
In this work we consider gravitational theories in which the effect of coupling characteristic classes, appropriately introduced as operators in the Einstein-Hilbert action, has been taken into account. As it is well known, this approach strays from the framework of general relativity since it results in theories in which torsion can be present. We consider here all the characteristic classes that are consistent with a four-dimensional space-time manifold. Then, we present explicit expressions for the contortion $1$-form and torsion $2$-form that can be obtained under general conditions in var…
Homogeneous isotropic spatial flat cosmological models with two torsion functions in vacuum are built and investigated in the framework of de Sitter gauge theory of gravity. It is shown that by certain choices of parameters of gravitational Lagrangian the cosmological equations have some exact constant solutions that turn out to be stable de Sitter critical points of dynamical systems and can explain observable acceleration of cosmological expansion. The role of the space-time torsion provoking the acceleration of cosmological expansion is shown.
According to the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity, curvature and torsion are two equivalent ways of describing the same gravitational field. Despite equivalent, however, they act differently: whereas curvature yields a geometric description, in which the concept of gravitational force is absent, torsion acts as a true gravitational force, quite similar to the Lorentz force of electrodynamics. As a consequence, the right-hand side of a spinless-particle equation of motion (which would represent a gravitational force) is always zero in the geometric description, but not in the telep…
The mantra about gravitation as curvature is a misnomer. The curvature tensor for a standard of rest does not describe acceleration in a gravitational field but the \underline{gradient} of the acceleration (e.g. geodesic deviation). The gravitational field itself (Einstein 1907) is essentially an accelerated reference system. It is characterized by a field of orthonormal four-legs in a Riemann space with Lorentz metric. By viewing vectors at different events having identical leg-components as parallel (teleparallelism) the geometry in a gravitational field defines torsion. This formulation of …
A exact de Sitter-like cosmological solution of quadratic gravitation with torsion has been found. In the limit of constant energy and pressure, it becomes a exact de Sitter spacetime. It exists in a wide class of quadratic gravity theories and is the same in vacuum for all the models in this class, no matter how the coefficients of the quadratic terms in the Lagrangian are. It describes an accelerating universe and gives a cosmological constant which is of the order of magnitude of the observed value. In vacuum the universe is a de Sitter spacetime without torsion. When matter presents, howev…
The definition of the Riemann-Cartan space of the plane wave type is given. The condition under which the torsion plane waves exist is found. It is expressed in the form of the restriction imposed on the coupling constants of the 10-parametric quadratic gravitational Lagrangian. In the mathematical appendix the formula for commutator of the variation operator and Hodge operator is proved. This formula is applied for the variational procedure when the gravitational field equations are obtained in terms of the exterior differential forms.
Dipole fields are common in electromagnetism and may be viewed as the result of a positive and negative charge (or pole) which are close together. A dipole field in gravity is not expected to exist because negative mass has never been observed. However, an exact solution to the gravitational field equations with torsion is presented that does correspond to a dipole gravitational field, even though there is no negative mass. The theory is based on a non-symmetric metric tensor, and it is found there is a singularity in the metric tensor at the origin but no event horizon. Gravitational dipoles …
In Einstein's gravitational theory, the spacetime is Riemannian, that is, it has vanishing torsion and vanishing nonmetricity (covariant derivative of the metric). In the gauging of the general affine group ${A}(4,R)$ and of its subgroup ${GL}(4,R)$ in four dimensions, energy--momentum and hypermomentum currents of matter are canonically coupled to the one--form basis and to the connection of a metric--affine spacetime with nonvanishing torsion and nonmetricity, respectively. Fermionic matter can be described in this framework by half--integer representations of the $\overline{SL}(4,R)$ coveri…
Poincaré gauge theory of gravity offers opportunities to solve some principal problems of general relativity theory and modern cosmology. In the frame of this theory the gravitational interaction can have the repulsion character in the case of usual gravitating matter with positive values of energy density and pressure satisfying energy dominance condition. Cosmological consequences of gravitational repulsion are considered in the case of homogeneous isotropic models in connection with the problem of cosmological singularity and dark energy problem of general relativity theory. Regular Big Ban…
The general covariance principle, seen as an active version of the principle of equivalence, is used to study the gravitational coupling prescription in the presence of curvature and torsion. It is concluded that the coupling prescription determined by this principle is always equivalent with the corresponding prescription of general relativity. An application to the case of a Dirac spinor is made.
We recall some of the obstacles which arise when one tries to reconcile the general theory of relativity with quantum theory. We consider the possibility that gravitation theories which include torsion, and not only curvature, provide better insight into a quantum theory of gravity. We speculate on how the Dirac equation and Einstein gravity could be thought of as limiting cases of a gravitation theory which possesses torsion.
Relativistic gravitational anomalies lead to anomalous transport coefficients that can be activated at finite temperature in condensed matter systems with gapless fermions. The chiral vortical effect (CVE) is an anomalous chiral current along a rotation axis, expressed in terms of a gravimagnetic field and a gravitational anomaly. Another one, the chiral torsional effect (CTE), arises from hydrodynamically independent frame fields and connection. We discuss the relation of CVE, CTE and gravitational anomalies for relativistic fermions from the perspective of torsion and the Nieh-Yan anomaly. T…
We give a complete formulation of Poincare gauge theory, starting from the fibre bundle formulation to the resultant Riemann-Cartan spacetime. We also introduce several diverse gravity theories descendent from the Poincare gauge theory. Especially, the cosmological effect of the simple scalar-torsion (0^+) mode in Poincare gauge theory of gravity is studied. In the theory, we treat the geometric effect of torsion as an effective quantity, which behaves like dark energy and study the effective equation of state (EoS) of the model. We construct the extra dimension theory of teleparallel gravity …
The role played by torsion in gravitation is critically reviewed. After a description of the problems and controversies involving the physics of torsion, a comprehensive presentation of the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity is made. According to this theory, curvature and torsion are alternative ways of describing the gravitational field, and consequently related to the same degrees of freedom of gravity. However, more general gravity theories, like for example Einstein-Cartan and gauge theories for the Poincare and the affine groups, consider curvature and torsion as representing …
n scalar-tensor theories of gravity with torsion, the gravitational field is described in terms of a symmetric metric tensor $g$, a metric-compatible connection $\nabla$ with torsion, and a scalar field $ϕ$. The main aim is to explore an interaction of a charged perfect fluid and a scalar field $ϕ$ in a background electromagnetic and gravitational field described by \{$g$, $\nabla$, $ϕ$\}. The interaction is based on an action functional $S_C$ of a charged perfect fluid that is invariant under global conformal rescalings. Using a variational principle, we obtain equations of motion for the cha…
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.
Several exact cosmological solutions of a metric-affine theory of gravity with two torsion functions are presented. These solutions give a essentially different explanation from the one in most of previous works to the cause of the accelerating cosmological expansion and the origin of the torsion of the spacetime. These solutions can be divided into two classes. The solutions in the first class define the critical points of a dynamical system representing an asymptotically stable de Sitter spacetime. The solutions in the second class have exact analytic expressions which have never been found …
In the context of the metric-affine Chern-Simons gravity endowed with projective invariance, we derive analytical solutions for torsion and nonmetricity in the homogeneous and isotropic cosmological case, described by a flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker metric. We discuss in some details the general properties of the cosmological solutions in the presence of a perfect fluid, such as the dynamical stability and the emergence of big bounce points, and we examine the structure of some specific solutions reproducing de Sitter and power law behaviours for the scale factor. Then, we focus on first-ord…
The simplest gauge gravitation theory in Riemann-Cartan space-time leading to the solution of the problem of cosmological singularity and dark energy problem is investigated with purpose to solve the dark matter problem. It is shown that the interaction of the vacuum torsion field with proper angular moments of gravitating objects can lead to appearance at astrophysical scale (galaxies, galactic clusters) additional force of gravitational attraction, which in the frame of standard theory is connected with dark matter.
Teleparallel theory of gravity and its modifications have been studied extensively in literature. However, gravitational waves has not been studied enough in the framework of teleparallelism. In the present study, we discuss gravitational waves in general theories of teleparallel gravity containing the torsion scalar $T$, the boundary term $B$ and a scalar field $ϕ$. The goal is to classify possible new polarizations generalizing results presented in Ref.[15]. We show that, if the boundary term is minimally coupled to the torsion scalar and the scalar field, gravitational waves have the same p…
We prove that a conserved effective energy-momentum tensor for Einstein-Cartan theory can be identified from the Noether identities of the matter Lagrangian, using the torsion field equations relating them. More precisely, a one-parameter family labelled by the Immirzi parameter. We use this result and the contorsion description to show that Jacobson's thermodynamical derivation of the Einstein equations follows as in the metric theory, namely from the equilibrium Clausius relation and the fact that a Killing horizon is metric-geodetic. Our derivation works for an arbitrary torsion field. In t…
We propose a gravitational model which allows the independent dynamical behaviour of the torsion and nonmetricity fields to be displayed in the framework of Metric-Affine gauge theory of gravity. For this task, we derive a new exact black hole solution referred to this model which extends the role of torsion of the main well-known exact solutions based on Weyl-Cartan geometry and constitutes the first known isolated gravitational system characterized by a metric tensor with independent spin and dilation charges.
A manifestly gauge invariant formulation of the coupling of the Maxwell theory with an Einstein Cartan geometry is given, where the space time torsion originates from a massless Kalb-Ramond field augmented by suitable U(1) Chern Simons terms.We focus on the situation where the torsion violates parity, and relate it to earlier proposals for gravitational parity violation.
It is proven that the usual quadratic general-covariant Lagrangian for the Dirac field leads to a symmetric, divergence-free energy-momentum tensor in the standard Riemannian framework of space-time without torsion, provided the tetrad field components are the only quantities related to gravitation that are varied independently.
The field equations in the nonsymmetric gravitational theory are derived from a Lagrangian density using a first-order formalism. Using the general covariance of the Lagrangian density, conservation laws and tensor identities are derived. Among these are the generalized Bianchi identities and the law of energy-momentum conservation. The Lagrangian density is expanded to second-order, and treated as an ``Einstein plus fields'' theory. From this, it is deduced that the energy is positive in the radiation zone.
We consider the most general torsional completion of gravitation together with electrodynamics for the Dirac spinorial material fields, and we show that consistency arguments constrain torsion to be completely antisymmetric and the dynamics to be parity-invariant and described by actions that are either least-order derivative or renormalizable.
The Mercury Orbiter radio Science Experiment (MORE) is one of the experiments on-board the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission to Mercury, to be launched in October 2018. Thanks to full on-board and on-ground instrumentation performing very precise tracking from the Earth, MORE will have the chance to determine with very high accuracy the Mercury-centric orbit of the spacecraft and the heliocentric orbit of Mercury. This will allow to undertake an accurate test of relativistic theories of gravitation (relativity experiment), which consists in improving the knowledge of some post-Newtonian and related…
We show that the gravitational field equations derived from an action composed of i) an arbitrary function of the scalar curvature and other scalar fields plus ii) connection-independent kinetic and source terms, are identical whether one chooses nonmetricity to vanish and have non-zero torsion or vice versa.
In this paper, we introduce the experiment based on a sensitive torsion pendulum for measuring and calibrating small forces at nanonewton scale. The force standard for calibration is the universal gravitation between four masses separated by known distances. It is realized by two test masses suspended as the part of torsion pendulum and two source masses on a rotation table. Two force generation mechanisms, optical force from radiation pressure and electrostatic force by capacitive actuation unit, are designed and will be calibrated by the gravitation force. We present our recent results of ra…
We show that in theories of gravitation with torsion the helicity of fermion particles is not conserved and we calculate the probability of spin flip, which is related to the anti-symmetric part of affine connection. Some cosmological consequences are discussed.
