Gravitational energy-momentum and the Hamiltonian formulation of the teleparallel gravity

Teleparallel gravity and its popular generalization $f(T)$ gravity can be formulated as fully invariant (under both coordinate transformations and local Lorentz transformations) theories of gravity. Several misconceptions about teleparallel gravity and its generalizations can be found in the literature, especially regarding their local Lorentz invariance. We describe how these misunderstandings may have arisen and attempt to clarify the situation. In particular, the central p...

Symmetric teleparallel gravity theories, in which the gravitational interaction is attributed to the nonmetricity of a flat, symmetric, but not metric-compatible affine connection, have been a topic of growing interest in recent studies. Numerous works study the cosmology of symmetric teleparallel gravity assuming a flat Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker metric, while working in the so-called "coincident gauge", further assuming that the connection coefficients vanish. Ho...

We apply Dirac's Hamiltonian approach to study the canonical structure of the teleparallel form of general relativity without matter fields. It is shown, without any gauge fixing, that the Hamiltonian has the generalized Dirac-ADM form, and constraints satisfy all the consistency requirements. The set of constraints involves some extra first class constraints, which are used to find additional gauge symmetries and clarify the gauge structure of the theory.

The teleparallel formulation of gravity theories reveals close structural analogies to electrodynamics, which are more hidden in their usual formulation in terms of the curvature of spacetime. We show how every locally Lorentz invariant teleparallel theory of gravity with second order field equations can be understood as built from a gravitational field strength and excitation tensor which are related to each other by a constitutive relation, analogous to the axiomatic constr...

We investigate modified theories of gravity in the context of teleparallel geometries with possible Gauss-Bonnet contributions. The possible coupling of gravity with the trace of the energy-momentum tensor is also taken into account. This is motivated by the various different theories formulated in the teleparallel approach and the metric approach without discussing the exact relationship between them. Our formulation clarifies the connections between different well known the...

We give a pedagogical introduction into the field of (modified) teleparallel theories of gravity. Our presentation is fairly self-contained. In particular, we carefully explain the basic principles of metric-affine approaches to gravity. This contribution is based on our talk "Teleparallel gravity, its modifications, and the local Lorentz invariance" at the 9th Mathematical Physics Meeting: School and Conference on Modern Mathematical Physics in Belgrade, September 2017.

We present Hamilton's equations for the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity (TEGR), which is a reformulation of general relativity based on a curvatureless, metric compatible, and torsionful connection. For this, we consider the Hamiltonian for TEGR obtained through the vector, antisymmetric, symmetric and trace-free, and trace irreducible decomposition of the phase space variables. We present the Hamiltonian for TEGR in the covariant formalism for the first time in...

In this paper we review the canonical analysis of constrained systems and apply it in the case of teleparallel equivalent of general relativity and teleparallel gravity. For each of them we find all the Poisson brackets, generators of gauge symmetries, as well as the number of degrees of freedom.

We present a consistent and complete description of the coupling to matter in the Teleparallel Equivalent to General Relativity (TEGR) theory built from a Cartan connection, as we proposed in previous works. A first theorem allows us to obtain parallel transport from the Cartan connection into a proper Ehresmann connection, while a second ensures to link the TEGR-Cartan connection to the Ehresmann one-form that contains the Levi-Civita connection. This yields a coupling to ma...

In this paper, it is argued that in gravity theories the local Lorentz group can not be considered as a gauge group in the sense of Yang-Mills theories, the Lorentz connection is not a gauge potential but an artificial force, the inertial force. A genuine gravity theory should be a translation gauge theory, though a unnormal gauge theory. All the three theories of the Geometrical Trinity of Gravity are translation gauge theories. A real gravity theory should get rid of "gaugi...