Infrared modification of gravity from conformal symmetry

Abstract

We reconsider a gauge theory of gravity in which the gauge group is the conformal group SO(4,2) and the action is of the Yang-Mills form, quadratic in the curvature. The resulting gravitational theory exhibits local conformal symmetry and reduces to Weyl-squared gravity under certain conditions. When the theory is linearized about flat spacetime, we find that matter which couples to the generators of special conformal transformations reproduces Newton's inverse square law. Conversely, matter which couples to generators of translations induces a constant and possibly repulsive force far from the source, which may be relevant for explaining the late time acceleration of the universe. The coupling constant of theory is dimensionless, which means that it is potentially renormalizable.

7 pages. Expanded presentation and some changes of notation. Matches version published in PRD

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Higgs and Goldstone modes in crystalline solids
• A big bounce, slow-roll inflation and dark energy from conformal gravity
• Gravitational waves from inspiralling compact binaries in conformal gravity
• SO(4; 2) and derivatively coupled dRGT massive gravity
• Schwarzschild and linear potentials in Mannheim's model of conformal gravity