Search results for "Affine"
showing 10 items of 183 documents
Observational effects of varying speed of light in quadratic gravity cosmological models
2017
We study different manifestations of the speed of light in theories of gravity where metric and connection are regarded as independent fields. We find that for a generic gravity theory in a frame with locally vanishing affine connection, the usual degeneracy between different manifestations of the speed of light is broken. In particular, the space-time causal structure constant ([Formula: see text]) may become variable in that local frame. For theories of the form [Formula: see text], this variation in [Formula: see text] has an impact on the definition of the luminosity distance (and distance modulus), which can be used to confront the predictions of particular models against Supernovae t…
Correspondence between modified gravity and general relativity with scalar fields
2018
We describe a novel procedure to map the field equations of nonlinear Ricci-based metric-affine theories of gravity, coupled to scalar matter described by a given Lagrangian, into the field equations of General Relativity coupled to a different scalar field Lagrangian. Our analysis considers examples with a single and $N$ real scalar fields, described either by canonical Lagrangians or by generalized functions of the kinetic and potential terms. In particular, we consider several explicit examples involving $f(R)$ theories and the Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld gravity model, coupled to different scalar field Lagrangians. We show how the nonlinearities of the gravitational sector of these t…
Generalized Ashtekar variables for Palatini f(R) models
2021
We consider special classes of Palatini f(R) theories, featured by additional Loop Quantum Gravity inspired terms, with the aim of identifying a set of modified Ashtekar canonical variables, which still preserve the SU(2) gauge structure of the standard theory. In particular, we allow for affine connection to be endowed with torsion, which turns out to depend on the additional scalar degree affecting Palatini f(R) gravity, and in this respect we successfully construct a novel Gauss constraint. We analyze the role of the additional scalar field, outlining as it acquires a dynamical character by virtue of a non vanishing Immirzi parameter, and we describe some possible effects on the area ope…
Observable traces of non-metricity: new constraints on metric-affine gravity
2018
Relaxing the Riemannian condition to incorporate geometric quantities such as torsion and non-metricity may allow to explore new physics associated with defects in a hypothetical space-time microstructure. Here we show that non-metricity produces observable effects in quantum fields in the form of 4-fermion contact interactions, thereby allowing us to constrain the scale of non-metricity to be greater than 1 TeV by using results on Bhabha scattering. Our analysis is carried out in the framework of a wide class of theories of gravity in the metric-affine approach. The bound obtained represents an improvement of several orders of magnitude to previous experimental constraints.
Ghosts in metric-affine higher order curvature gravity
2019
We disprove the widespread belief that higher order curvature theories of gravity in the metric-affine formalism are generally ghost-free. This is clarified by considering a sub-class of theories constructed only with the Ricci tensor and showing that the non-projectively invariant sector propagates ghost-like degrees of freedom. We also explain how these pathologies can be avoided either by imposing a projective symmetry or additional constraints in the gravity sector. Our results put forward that higher order curvature gravity theories generally remain pathological in the metric-affine (and hybrid) formalisms and highlight the key importance of the projective symmetry and/or additional co…
Scattering amplitudes in affine gravity
2020
Affine gravity is a connection-based formulation of gravity that does not involve a metric. After a review of basic properties of affine gravity, we compute the tree-level scattering amplitude of scalar particles interacting gravitationally via the connection in a curved spacetime. We find that, while classically equivalent to general relativity, affine gravity differs from metric quantum gravity.
Anisotropic deformations in a class of projectively-invariant metric-affine theories of gravity
2020
Among the general class of metric-affine theories of gravity, there is a special class conformed by those endowed with a projective symmetry. Perhaps the simplest manner to realise this symmetry is by constructing the action in terms of the symmetric part of the Ricci tensor. In these theories, the connection can be solved algebraically in terms of a metric that relates to the spacetime metric by means of the so-called deformation matrix that is given in terms of the matter fields. In most phenomenological applications, this deformation matrix is assumed to inherit the symmetries of the matter sector so that in the presence of an isotropic energy-momentum tensor, it respects isotropy. In th…
On Chiral Quantum Superspaces
2011
We give a quantum deformation of the chiral Minkowski superspace in 4 dimensions embedded as the big cell into the chiral conformal superspace. Both deformations are realized as quantum homogeneous superspaces: we deform the ring of regular functions together with a coaction of the corresponding quantum supergroup.
Affine camera calibration from homographies of parallel planes
2010
This paper deals with the problem of retrieving the affine structure of a scene from two or more images of parallel planes. We propose a new approach that is solely based on plane homographies, calculated from point correspondences, and that does not require the recovery of the 3D structure of the scene. Neither vanishing points nor lines need to be extracted from the images. The case of a moving camera with constant intrinsic parameters and the one of cameras with possibly different parameters are both addressed. Extensive experiments with both synthetic and real images have validated our approach.
Uniform estimates for the X-ray transform restricted to polynomial curves
2012
We establish near-optimal mixed-norm estimates for the X-ray transform restricted to polynomial curves with a weight that is a power of the affine arclength. The bounds that we establish depend only on the spatial dimension and the degree of the polynomial. Some of our results are new even in the well-curved case.