Speaker
Dr
Georgios Karananas
(Munich University, ASC)
Description
I will show how Einstein-Cartan gravity can accommodate both global scale and local scale (Weyl) invariance. To this end, I will present a wide class of models with non-propagaing torsion and a nonminimally coupled scalar field. In phenomenological applications the scalar field may be associated with the Higgs boson. For global scale invariance, an additional dynamical field — the dilaton — is needed to make the theory phenomenologically viable. In the case of Weyl symmetry, the dilaton is spurious and the theory reduces to a sub-class of one-field models. Eliminating non-propagating degrees of freedom, I will derive an equivalent theory in the metric formulation of gravity and briefly discuss possible implications for phenomenology.
