The Chrono'Geometrical Structure of Special and General Relativity: Towards a Background-Independent Description of the Gravitational Field and Elementary Particles
Abstract
Description
Since the main open problem of contemporary physics is to find a unified description of the four interactions, we present a possible scenario which, till now only at the classical level, is able to englobe experiments ranging from experimental space gravitation to atomic and particle physics. After a reformulation of special relativistic physics in a form taking into account the non-dynamical chrono-geometrical structure of Minkowski space-time (parametrized Minkowski theories and rest-frame instant form) and in particular the conventionality of simultaneity (re-phrased as a gauge freedom), a model of canonical metric and tetrad gravity is proposed in a class of space-times where the deparametrization to Minkowski space-time is possible. In them it is possible to give a post-Minkowskian background-independent description of the gravitational field and of matter. The study of the dynamical chrono-geometrical structure of these space-times allows to face interpretational problems like the physical identification of point-events (the Hole Argument), the distinction between inertial (gauge) and tidal (Dirac observables) effects, the dynamical nature of simultaneity in general relativity and to find background-independent gravitational waves. These developments are possible at the Hamiltonian level due to a systematic use of Dirac-Bergmann theory of constraints. Finally there is a proposal for a new coordinate- and background-independent quantization scheme for gravity.
71 pages, invited paper for the book "Progress in General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Research" (Nova Science)
71 pages, invited paper for the book "Progress in General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Research" (Nova Science)