Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Scientific paper
1992-07-22
Phys.Rev.D47:1541-1556,1993
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
34 pages
Scientific paper
10.1103/PhysRevD.47.1541
Motivated by the apparent dependence of string $\sigma$--models on the sum of spacetime metric and antisymmetric tensor fields, we reconsider gravity theories constructed from a nonsymmetric metric. We first show that all such "geometrical" theories homogeneous in second derivatives violate standard physical requirements: ghost-freedom, absence of algebraic inconsistencies or continuity of degree-of-freedom content. This no-go result applies in particular to the old unified theory of Einstein and its recent avatars. However, we find that the addition of nonderivative, ``cosmological'' terms formally restores consistency by giving a mass to the antisymmetric tensor field, thereby transmuting it into a fifth-force-like massive vector but with novel possible matter couplings. The resulting macroscopic models also exhibit ``van der Waals''-type gravitational effects, and may provide useful phenomenological foils to general relativity.
Damour Thibault
Deser Stanley
McCarthy J. J.
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