November 22, 2007
Torsion represents the most natural extension of General Relativity and it attracted interest over the years in view of its link with fundamental properties of particle motion. The bulk of the approaches concerning the torsion dynamics focus their attention on their geometrical nature and they are naturally led to formulate a non-propagating theory. Here we review two different paradigms to describe the role of the torsion field, as far as a propagating feature of the resul...
May 5, 2015
We propose a modified gravitational action containing besides the Einstein-Cartan term some quadratic contributions resembling the Yang-Mills lagrangian for the Lorentz spin connections. We outline how a propagating torsion arises and we solve explicitly the linearised equations of motion on a Minkowski background. We identify among torsion components six degrees of freedom: one is carried by a pseudo-scalar particle, five by a tachyon field. By adding spinor fields and negle...
October 22, 2014
We discuss the quantum dynamics of the Dirac fermion particle in a gauge gravitational field. The minimal as well as the Pauli-type nonminimal coupling of a fermion with external fields is studied, bringing into consideration the notions of the translational and the Lorentz gravitational moments. The anomalous gravitomagnetic and gravitoelectric moments are ruled out on the basis of the covariance arguments. We derive the general Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation for an arbitra...
May 26, 2009
We show that it is possible to formulate the classical Einstein-Maxwell-Dirac theory of spinors interacting with the gravitational and electromagnetic fields as the Einstein-Cartan-Kibble-Sciama theory with the Ricci scalar of the traceless torsion, describing gravity, and the torsion trace acting as the electromagnetic potential.
January 14, 2014
We will consider the torsional completion of gravity for a background filled with Dirac matter fields, studying the weak-gravitational non-relativistic approximation, in view of an assessment about their effective phenomenology: we discuss how the torsionally-induced non-linear interactions among fermion fields in this limit are compatible with all experiments, and remarks on the role of torsion to suggest new physics are given.
November 2, 1998
In a space-time with torsion, the action for the gravitational field can be extended with a parity-violating piece. We show how to obtain such a piece from geometry itself, by suitably modifying the affine connection so as to include a pseudo-tensorial part. A consistent method is thus suggested for incorporating parity-violation in the Lagrangians of all matter fields with spin in a space-time background with torsion.
December 22, 2015
We recall some of the obstacles which arise when one tries to reconcile the general theory of relativity with quantum theory. We consider the possibility that gravitation theories which include torsion, and not only curvature, provide better insight into a quantum theory of gravity. We speculate on how the Dirac equation and Einstein gravity could be thought of as limiting cases of a gravitation theory which possesses torsion.
October 30, 1998
Torsion appears in a natural way in modern formulations of the gravitational theories. In this work we study several aspects of the interplay between the Standard Model and a classical gravitational background with torsion. In particular we consider the problem of the gauge and gravitational anomalies, $B$ and $L$ anomalies, the effective action for the torsion and the propagation of electromagnetic radiation in the presence of torsion.
September 13, 2007
A non-topological Lorentz gauge model of gravity with torsion based on Gauss-Bonnet type Lagrangian is considered. The Lagrangian differs from the Lovelock term in four-dimensional space-time and has a number of interesting features. We demonstrate that the model admits a propagating torsion unlike the case of the topological Lovelock gravity. Due to additional symmetries of the proposed Gauss-Bonnet type Lagrangian the torsion has a reduced set of dynamical degrees of freedo...
October 15, 1998
On the basis of an algebraic relation between torsion and a classical spinor field a new interpretation of Einstein-Cartan gravity interacting with classical spinor field is proposed. In this approach the spinor field becomes an auxiliary field and the dynamical equation for this field (the Heisenberg equation) is a dynamical, gravitational equation for torsion. The simplest version of this theory is examined where the metric degrees of freedom are frozen and only torsion pla...