Gödel-symmetric backgrounds and explicit spacetime symmetry breaking

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Riquelme, César, Reyes, Carlos M., Santos, A. F.
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Riquelme, César
Reyes, Carlos M.
Santos, A. F.
author_facet Riquelme, César
Reyes, Carlos M.
Santos, A. F.
contents Explicit breaking of diffeomorphism symmetry with nondynamical background fields in gravitational theories can lead to inconsistencies between the equations of motion and the underlying pseudo-Riemannian geometry. These theories produce a constraint equation that follows from the modified Einstein's equations and the contracted Bianchi identity which has no simple solution and raises questions about the consistency of backgrounds structures in extensions to general relativity. In contrast, spontaneous symmetry breaking where fields acquire a vacuum expectation value are shown to avoid these problems. Nevertheless, there are some approaches that consistently implement explicit diffeomorphism breaking by: i) introducing geometrical restrictions which may dynamically restore diffeomorphism invariance, ii) using the Stückelberg formalism where auxiliary scalar fields can carry degrees of freedom associated to spontaneously broken symmetries, and more recently by iii) exploiting the isometries of a given gravitational configuration in the presence of a background; which ultimately requires the background fields to be Lie-dragged along the Killing vectors. In this work, we further develop and apply the latter approach focusing on a concrete example involving the Gödel metric and the minimal gravitational Standard-Model Extension. We show that the resulting dynamics is fully consistent with the constraint equation and produce new Noether's identities. Furthermore we investigate causality violations by analyzing the critical radius, which is found to depend explicitly on the background fields. This dependence allows for the emergence of both causal and non-causal regions in spacetime.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_20003
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Gödel-symmetric backgrounds and explicit spacetime symmetry breaking
Riquelme, César
Reyes, Carlos M.
Santos, A. F.
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Theory
Explicit breaking of diffeomorphism symmetry with nondynamical background fields in gravitational theories can lead to inconsistencies between the equations of motion and the underlying pseudo-Riemannian geometry. These theories produce a constraint equation that follows from the modified Einstein's equations and the contracted Bianchi identity which has no simple solution and raises questions about the consistency of backgrounds structures in extensions to general relativity. In contrast, spontaneous symmetry breaking where fields acquire a vacuum expectation value are shown to avoid these problems. Nevertheless, there are some approaches that consistently implement explicit diffeomorphism breaking by: i) introducing geometrical restrictions which may dynamically restore diffeomorphism invariance, ii) using the Stückelberg formalism where auxiliary scalar fields can carry degrees of freedom associated to spontaneously broken symmetries, and more recently by iii) exploiting the isometries of a given gravitational configuration in the presence of a background; which ultimately requires the background fields to be Lie-dragged along the Killing vectors. In this work, we further develop and apply the latter approach focusing on a concrete example involving the Gödel metric and the minimal gravitational Standard-Model Extension. We show that the resulting dynamics is fully consistent with the constraint equation and produce new Noether's identities. Furthermore we investigate causality violations by analyzing the critical radius, which is found to depend explicitly on the background fields. This dependence allows for the emergence of both causal and non-causal regions in spacetime.
title Gödel-symmetric backgrounds and explicit spacetime symmetry breaking
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.20003