REMARKS CONCERNING THE GEOMETRIES OF GRAVITY AND GAUGE FIELDS
arXiv:gr-qc/9503055
Abstract
An important limitation is shown in the analogy between the Aharonov-Bohm effect and the parallel transport on a cone. It illustrates a basic difference between gravity and gauge fields due to the existence of the solder form for the space-time geometry. This difference is further shown by the observability of the gravitational phase for open paths. This reinforces a previous suggestion that the fundamental variables for quantizing the gravitational field are the solder form and the connection, and not the metric.
11 pages, tex, 1 figure which may be obtained from the author by sending him an e-mail to [email protected] or a snail-mail to his present address at the Dept. of Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford, 1 Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3NP, England.