A Superconnection for Riemannian Gravity as Spontaneously Broken SL(4,R) Gauge Theory

A superconnection is a supermatrix whose even part contains the gauge-potential one-forms of a local gauge group, while the odd parts contain the (0-form) Higgs fields; the combined grading is thus odd everywhere. We demonstrate that the simple supergroup ${\bar P}(4,R)$ (rank=3) in Kac' classification (even subgroup $\bar {SL}(4,R)$) prverline {SL}(4,R)$) provides for the most economical spontaneous breaking of$\bar{SL}(4,R)$as gauge group, leaving just local$\bar{SO}(1,3)$ unbroken. As a result, post-Riemannian SKY gravity yields Einstein's theory as a low-energy (longer range) effective theory. The theory is renormalizable and may be unitary.Comment: 11 pages, late

Improved Energy-Momentum Currents in Metric-Affine Spacetime

In Minkowski spacetime it is well-known that the canonical energy-momentum current is involved in the construction of the globally conserved currents of energy-momentum and total angular momentum. For the construction of conserved currents corresponding to (approximate) scale and proper conformal symmetries, however, an improved energy-momentum current is needed. By extending the Minkowskian framework to a genuine metric-affine spacetime, we find that the affine Noether identities and the conformal Killing equations enforce this improvement in a rather natural way. So far, no gravitational dynamics is involved in our construction. The resulting dilation and proper conformal currents are conserved provided the trace of the energy-momentum current satisfies a (mild) scaling relation or even vanishes.Comment: 14p

World Spinors - Construction and Some Applications

The existence of a topological double-covering for the $GL(n,R)$ and diffeomorphism groups is reviewed. These groups do not have finite-dimensional faithful representations. An explicit construction and the classification of all $\bar{SL}(n,R)$, $n=3,4$ unitary irreducible representations is presented. Infinite-component spinorial and tensorial $\bar{SL}(4,R)$ fields, "manifields", are introduced. Particle content of the ladder manifields, as given by the $\bar{SL}(3,R)$ "little" group is determined. The manifields are lifted to the corresponding world spinorial and tensorial manifields by making use of generalized infinite-component frame fields. World manifields transform w.r.t. corresponding $\bar{Diff}(4,R)$ representations, that are constructed explicitly.Comment: 19 pages, Te

Cosmological Surrealism: More than ``Eternal Reality" is Needed

Inflationary Cosmology makes the universe ``eternal" and provides for recurrent universe creation, ad infinitum -- making it also plausible to assume that ``our" Big Bang was also preceeded by others, etc.. However, GR tells us that in the ``parent" universe's reference frame, the newborn universe's expansion will never start. Our picture of ``reality" in spacetime has to be enlarged.Comment: 7 pages, TAUP N23

The application of lie groups to invariance principles in physics

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The strongest force

This article by one of the co-discoverers of 'the eightfold way' of classifying strongly interacting particles, first appeared in 'Science Year 1968' and is reproduced here by kind permission of the publishers