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Main Authors: Borissova, Johanna, Ho, Pei-Ming
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.14478
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author Borissova, Johanna
Ho, Pei-Ming
author_facet Borissova, Johanna
Ho, Pei-Ming
contents Area metrics and area metric backgrounds provide a unified framework for quantum gravity. They encode physical degrees of freedom beyond those of a metric. These non-metric degrees of freedom must be suppressed by a potential at sufficiently high energy scales to ensure that in the infrared regime classical gravity is recovered. On this basis, we first study necessary and sufficient algebraic conditions for an area metric to be induced by a metric. Second, we consider candidate potentials for the area metric and point out a possible connection between the reduction of area metric geometry to metric geometry on the one hand, and the smallness of the cosmological constant on the other. Finally, we consider modifications of the Nambu-Goto action for a string, from a metric background to an area metric background. We demonstrate that area metric perturbations introduce an interaction corresponding to a singular vertex operator in the classically equivalent Polyakov action. The implications of these types of vertex operators for the quantum theory remain to be understood.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2404_14478
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle From area metric backgrounds to the cosmological constant and corrections to the Polyakov action
Borissova, Johanna
Ho, Pei-Ming
High Energy Physics - Theory
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Area metrics and area metric backgrounds provide a unified framework for quantum gravity. They encode physical degrees of freedom beyond those of a metric. These non-metric degrees of freedom must be suppressed by a potential at sufficiently high energy scales to ensure that in the infrared regime classical gravity is recovered. On this basis, we first study necessary and sufficient algebraic conditions for an area metric to be induced by a metric. Second, we consider candidate potentials for the area metric and point out a possible connection between the reduction of area metric geometry to metric geometry on the one hand, and the smallness of the cosmological constant on the other. Finally, we consider modifications of the Nambu-Goto action for a string, from a metric background to an area metric background. We demonstrate that area metric perturbations introduce an interaction corresponding to a singular vertex operator in the classically equivalent Polyakov action. The implications of these types of vertex operators for the quantum theory remain to be understood.
title From area metric backgrounds to the cosmological constant and corrections to the Polyakov action
topic High Energy Physics - Theory
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.14478