2016/12/31 by Marco de Cesare, John W. Moffat, Mairi Sakellariadou · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Conformal map #Conformal symmetry #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Einstein #General relativity #Geodesic #Gravitation #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Relativity and Gravitational Theory #Scalar (mathematics) #Symmetry (geometry) #Theory of relativity #gr-qc #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-017-5183-0
published as Eur. Phys. J. C, 77 9 (2017) 605 · 11 pages; v2: matches published version in EPJC; new title, includes new sections on the coupling of matter fields to the extended gravitational sector
openalex publication_date 2017/09/01 · arxiv created 2017/09/03 · openalex created_date 2017/09/15 · arxiv updated 2017/09/20 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We introduce an extension of the Standard Model and General Relativity built upon the principle of local conformal invariance, which represents a generalization of a previous work by Bars, Steinhardt and Turok. This is naturally realized by adopting as a geometric framework a particular class of non-Riemannian geometries, first studied by Weyl. The gravitational sector is enriched by a scalar and a vector field. The latter has a geometric origin and represents the novel feature of our approach. We argue that physical scales could emerge from a theory with no dimensionful parameters, as a result of the spontaneous breakdown of conformal and electroweak symmetries. We study the dynamics of matter fields in this modified gravity theory and show that test particles follow geodesics of the Levi-Civita connection, thus resolving an old criticism raised by Einstein against Weyl's original proposal.