We revisit Weyl's unified field theory, which arose in 1918, shortly after general relativity was discovered. As is well known, in order to extend the program of geometrization of physics started by Einstein to include the electromagnetic field, H. Weyl developed a new geometry which constitutes a kind of generalization of Riemannian geometry. However, despite its mathematical elegance and beauty, a serious objection was made by Einstein, who considered Weyl's theory not suitable as a physical theory since it seemed to lead to the prediction of a not yet observed effect, the so-called "second clock effect" . In this paper, our aim is to discuss Weyl's proposal anew and examine its consistency and completeness as a physical theory. Finally, we propose new directions and possible conceptual changes in the original work. As an application, we solve the field equations assuming a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe and a perfect fluid as its source. Although we have entirely abandoned Weyl's atempt to identify the vector field with the 4-dimensional electromagnetic potentials, which here must be simply viewed as part of the space-time geometry, we believe that in this way we could perhaps be led to a rich and interesting new modified gravity theory.
We construct a Weyl transverse diffeomorphism invariant theory of symmetric teleparallel gravity by employing the Weyl compensator formalism. The low-energy dynamics has a single spin two gravition without a scalar degree of freedom. By construction, it is equivalent to the unimodular gravity (as well as the Einstein gravity) at the non-linear level.
We revisit the issue that the Noether current associated with a local scale symmtery, or equivalently the Weyl symmetry, identically vanishes. Based on only the second Noether theorem for a local symmetry, we prove that the Noether current associated with the Weyl symmetry is in general vanishing in any Weyl invariant gravitational theories in four dimensional Riemannian geometry. We also clarify the reason: The Weyl transformation is non-dynamical in the sense that it does not contain the derivative term of the transformation parameter as opposed to the conventional gauge transformation. Fina…
This paper presents the detailed, standard treatment of a simple, gauge invariant action for Weyl and Weyl-like Cartan geometries outlined in a previous paper. In addition to the familiar scalar curvature squared and Maxwell terms, the action chosen contains the logarithmic derivative of the scalar curvature combined with the intrinsic four vector (Weyl vector) in a gauge invariant fashion. This introduces higher order derivative terms directly into the action. No separate, "matter" fields are introduced. As the usual Weyl metric and four vector are varied, certain gauge invariant combinations…
Higgs Mechanism for New Massive Gravity and Weyl Invariant Extensions of Higher Derivative Theories
New Massive Gravity为2+1维的引力子提供了Fierz-Pauli质量的非线性扩展。在这里，我们构建一个外尔不变的版本，这个理论。当外尔对称性破缺时，引力子会得到类似于希格斯机制的质量。在（反）-de Sitter背景中，对称性可以自发破缺，而在平坦背景中，辐射修正在双圈水平上，以Coleman-Weinberg机制破缺Weyl对称性。我们还构造了其他一些高阶导数模型的Weyl不变扩张，如Gauss-Bonnet理论（在三维中约化为Maxwell理论）和Born-Infeld型引力。
Dirac-Born-Infeld-Einstein theory with Weyl invariance
外尔不变量引力作为矢量暴胀的基本理论而被研究。相应地，我们考虑了Dirac-Born-Infeld型引力的Weyl不变扩张.我们发现，一个适当的选择的度量删除的标量自由度，这是在第一眼所需的局部尺度不变性的行动，然后一个向量场获得质量。然后引入向量场与曲率的非极小耦合。我们发现，Dirac Born Infeld型引力理论是一个适合的向量暴胀方案。
We apply the Lee-Wald covariant phase space method to the Weyl-invariant Topologically Massive Gravity and compute the corresponding on-shell conserved charges. By using appropriate decay conditions for the existing propagating modes in the near-horizon of a stationary black hole, we obtain the charges generating the asymptotic symmetries. We show that the charges are integrable and the (modified) algebras among the asymptotic generators are closed for the certain choice of central extensions.
We extend our previous analysis of a model for "dark energy" based on a Weyl scaling invariant dark energy action. We reexpress all prior results in terms of proper time, using the fluctuation amplitude $Φ$ without approximation, and derive a compact formula for the squared effective Hubble parameter. This formula involves effective dark energy and matter densities that differ from their expressions in the standard $ΛCDM$ cosmology. We also give new analytic results for the function $ Φ$ and discuss their implications.
We investigate cosmological inflationary scenarios from a gravitoelectromagnetic theory. Our work is formulated in the light of a recently introduced geometrical Weyl-Invariant scalar-tensor theory of gravity, where the nature of both the electromagnetic potential and the inflaton field is attributed to the space-time geometry. We obtain a Harrison-Zeldovich power spectrum for quantum fluctuations of the inflaton field. In our model the electromagnetic fields have also a nearly scale invariant power spectrum for a power-law inflation. We found that the the seed magnetic fields have a nearly sc…
Gravitational theories invariant under transverse diffeomorphisms and Weyl transformations have the same classical solutions as the corresponding fully diffeomorphism invariant theories. However, they solve some of the problems related to the cosmological constant and in principle allow local energy non-conservation. In the present work, we obtain the Noether charge formalism for these theories. We first derive expressions for the Noether currents and charges corresponding to transverse diffeomorphisms and Weyl transformations, showing that the latter vanish identically. We then use these resu…
Weyl-invariant extensions of three-dimensional New Massive Gravity, generic n-dimensional Quadratic Curvature Gravity theories and three-dimensional Born-Infeld gravity theory are analyzed in details. As required by Weyl-invariance, the actions of these gauge theories do not contain any dimensionful parameter; therefore the local symmetry is spontaneously broken in (Anti) de Sitter vacua in analogy with the Standard Model Higgs mechanism. About the flat vacuum, symmetry breaking mechanism is more complicated: The conformal symmetry is radiatively broken (at two loop level in 3-dimensions and a…
Inflation in the early universe can generate the nearly conformal invariant fluctuation that leads to the structures we observe at the present. The simple viable Starobinsky $R^2$ inflation has an approximate global scale symmetry. We study the conformal symmetric Weyl $\hat{R}^2$ and general $F(\hat{R})$ theories and demonstrate their equivalence to Einstein gravity coupled with a scalar and a Weyl gauge field. The scalar field in Weyl $\hat{R}^2$ gravity can be responsible for inflation with Starobinsky model as the attractor, potentially distinguishable from the latter by future experiments…
We introduce a new Weyl-invariant and generally-covariant vector-tensor theory with higher derivatives. This theory can be induced by extending the mimetic construction to vector fields of conformal weight four. We demonstrate that in gauge-invariant variables this novel theory reduces to the Henneaux-Teitelboim description of the unimodular gravity. Hence, compared with the standard general relativity, our new higher derivative vector-tensor theory has only one new global degree of freedom - the cosmological constant. Finally we discuss potential extensions of this vector-tensor theory.
We perform a manifestly covariant quantization of a Weyl invariant, i.e., a locally scale invariant, scalar-tensor gravity in the extended de Donder gauge condition (or harmonic gauge condition) for general coordinate invariance and a new scalar gauge for Weyl invariance within the framework of BRST formalism. It is shown that choral symmetry, which is a Poincar${\rm{\acute{e}}}$-like $\IOSp(8|8)$ supersymmetry in case of Einstein gravity, is extended to a Poincar${\rm{\acute{e}}}$-like $\IOSp(10|10)$ supersymmetry. We point out that there is a gravitational conformal symmetry in quantum gravi…
We propose a novel theory of gravity that by construction is renormalizable, evades Ostragadsky's no-go theorem, is locally scale-invariant in the high-energy limit, and equivalent to general relativity in the low-energy limit. The theory is defined by a pure f(R) = R^n action in the Palatini formalism, where the dimensionless exponent n runs from a value of two in the high-energy limit to one in the low-energy limit. We show that the proposed model contains no obvious cosmological curvature singularities. The viability of the proposed model is qualitatively assessed using several key criteria…
In this paper we explore the physical consequences of assuming Weyl invariance of the laws of gravity from the classical standpoint exclusively. Actual Weyl invariance requires to replace the underlying Riemannian geometrical structure of the background spacetimes by Weyl integrable geometry (WIG). We show that gauge freedom, a distinctive feature of Weyl invariant theories of gravity, leads to very unusual consequences. For instance, within the cosmological setting in a WIG-based conformal invariant gravity theory, also known as conformal general relativity (CGR), a static universe is physica…
We explore the cosmological viability of a theory of gravity defined by the Lagrangian $f(\mathcal{R})=\mathcal{R}^{n\left(\mathcal{R}\right)}$ in the Palatini formalism, where $n\left(\mathcal{R}\right)$ is a dimensionless function of the Palatini scalar curvature $\mathcal{R}$ that interpolates between general relativity when $n\left(\mathcal{R}\right)=1$ and a locally scale-invariant and superficially renormalizable theory when $n\left(\mathcal{R}\right)=2$. We refer to this model as asymptotically Weyl-invariant gravity (AWIG). We analyse perhaps the simplest possible implementation of AWI…
