PIRSA:16090037

Yang-Mills conformal gravity

Seahra, S. (2016). Yang-Mills conformal gravity. Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/16090037

Seahra, Sanjeev. Yang-Mills conformal gravity. Perimeter Institute, Sep. 01, 2016, https://pirsa.org/16090037 

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:16090037,
            doi = {10.48660/16090037},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/16090037},
            author = {Seahra, Sanjeev},
            keywords = {Strong Gravity},
            language = {en},
            title = {Yang-Mills conformal gravity},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2016},
            month = {sep},
            note = {PIRSA:16090037 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }

Sanjeev Seahra

University of New Brunswick

Talk number
PIRSA:16090037
Collection
Talk Type
Subject
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 vacuum sector of the resulting gravitational theory exhibits local conformal symmetry. We allow for conventional matter coupled to the spacetime metric as well as matter coupled to the field that gauges special conformal transformations.  When the theory is linearized about flat space, we find there is a long range gravitational force in addition to Newton’s inverse square law.  Furthermore, the cosmological sector of the theory exhibits late time acceleration, an early time bounce, and a post-bounce quasi-de Sitter ``inflationary'' phase of arbitrary duration (without an inflaton).