2010/01/20 by J. J. Lopez-Villarejo, J J Lopez-Villarejo
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Equivalence (formal languages) #Generalization #Group (periodic table) #Homogeneous space #Infinitesimal #Jacobian matrix and determinant #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Set (abstract data type) #Symmetry (geometry) #Unimodular matrix #gr-qc #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · open access · doi:10.1088/1742-6596/222/1/012015
published in Journal of Physics Conference Series 222, 012015 (IOP Publishing) · Prepared for the First Mediterranean Conference on Classical and Quantum Gravity, MCCQG, Kolymbari (Crete, Greece), 14-18 September, 2009; also, ERE2009: Gravitation in the Large, Bilbao (Spain), 7-11 September, 2009
arxiv created 2010/01/20 · openalex publication_date 2010/04/01 · arxiv updated 2015/05/18 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We explore the hypothesis that the set of symmetries enjoyed by the theory that describes gravity is not the full group of diffeomorphisms Diff(M), as in General Relativity, but a maximal subgroup of it, TransverseDiff(M), with its elements having a jacobian equal to unity; at the infinitesimal level, the parameter describing the coordinate change, ximu (x), is transverse, i.e., partialmu(ximu)=0. Incidentally, this is the smaller symmetry one needs to propagate consistently a graviton, which is a great theoretical motivation for considering these theories. Also, the determinant of the metric, g, behaves as a "transverse scalar", so that these theories can be seen as a generalization of the better-known unimodular gravity. We present our results on the observational constraints on transverse gravity, in close relation with the claim of equivalence with general scalar-tensor theory. We also comment on the structure of the divergences of the quantum theory to the one-loop order.