On the chiral anomaly in non-Riemannian spacetimes

The translational Chern-Simons type three-form coframe torsion on a Riemann-Cartan spacetime is related (by differentiation) to the Nieh-Yan four-form. Following Chandia and Zanelli, two spaces with non-trivial translational Chern-Simons forms are discussed. We then demonstrate, firstly within the classical Einstein-Cartan-Dirac theory and secondly in the quantum heat kernel approach to the Dirac operator, how the Nieh-Yan form surfaces in both contexts, in contrast to what has been assumed previously.Comment: 18 pages, RevTe

Inflation, bifurcations of nonlinear curvature Lagrangians and dark energy

A possible equivalence of scalar dark matter, the inflaton, and modified gravity is analyzed. After a conformal mapping, the dependence of the effective Lagrangian on the curvature is not only singular but also bifurcates into several almost Einsteinian spaces, distinguished only by a different effective gravitational strength and cosmological constant. A swallow tail catastrophe in the bifurcation set indicates the possibility for the coexistence of different Einsteinian domains in our Universe. This `triple unification' may shed new light on the nature and large scale distribution not only of dark matter but also on `dark energy', regarded as an effective cosmological constant, and inflation.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures, Proceedings of the 11th Marcel Grossmann Meeting (MG11) in Berlin, Germany, July 23-29, 200