Gravity with a dynamical preferred frame

Details Gravity with a dynamical preferred frame Gravity with a dynamical preferred frame

2000-07-14

arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0007031v4

Phys.Rev. D64 (2001) 024028

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

9 pages; title changed, references added, relation to prior work of Gasperini discussed, errors in scalar field stress tensor

Scientific paper

10.1103/PhysRevD.64.024028

We study a generally covariant model in which local Lorentz invariance is broken "spontaneously" by a dynamical unit timelike vector field $u^a$---the "aether". Such a model makes it possible to study the gravitational and cosmological consequences of preferred frame effects, such as ``variable speed of light" or high frequency dispersion, while preserving a generally covariant metric theory of gravity. In this paper we restrict attention to an action for an effective theory of the aether which involves only the antisymmetrized derivative $\nabla_{[a}u_{b]}$. Without matter this theory is equivalent to a sector of the Einstein-Maxwell-charged dust system. The aether has two massless transverse excitations, and the solutions of the model include all vacuum solutions of general relativity (as well as other solutions). However, the aether generally develops gradient singularities which signal a breakdown of this effective theory. Including the symmetrized derivative in the action for the aether field may cure this problem.

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