2016/02/29 by Stephon Alexander, John D. Barrow, João Magueijo +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Classical mechanics #Cosmological constant #Cosmology #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Decoupling (probability) #Einstein #Entropic gravity #Gravitation #Higgs boson #Higgs field #Higgs mechanism #Hořava–Lifshitz gravity #Induced gravity #Loop quantum gravity #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Quantum #Quantum gravity #Quantum mechanics #Semiclassical gravity #Theoretical physics #astro-ph.CO #f(R) gravity #gr-qc #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0264-9381/33/14/14lt01
published as Class. Quantum Grav. 33, 14LT01 (2016) · Version which appeared in Classical and Quantum Gravity
openalex publication_date 2016/06/21 · arxiv created 2017/06/29 · arxiv updated 2017/07/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We investigate how a Higgs mechanism could be responsible for the emergence of gravity in extensions of Einstein theory, with a suitable low energy limit. In this scenario, at high energies, symmetry restoration could ‘turn off’ gravity, with dramatic implications for cosmology and quantum gravity. The sense in which gravity is muted depends on the details of the implementation. In the most extreme case gravity’s dynamical degrees of freedom would only be unleashed after the Higgs field acquires a non-trivial vacuum expectation value, with gravity reduced to a topological field theory in the symmetric phase. We might also identify the Higgs and the Brans–Dicke fields in such a way that in the unbroken phase Newton’s constant vanishes, decoupling matter and gravity. We discuss the broad implications of these scenarios.