Gravity from breaking of local Lorentz symmetry

Abstract

We present a model of gravity based on spontaneous Lorentz symmetry breaking. We start from a model with spontaneously broken symmetries for a massless 2-tensor with a linear kinetic term and a nonderivative potential, which is shown to be equivalent to linearized general relativity, with the Nambu-Goldstone (NG) bosons playing the role of the gravitons. We apply a bootstrap procedure to the model based on the principle of consistent coupling to the total energy energy-momentum tensor. Demanding consistent application of the bootstrap to the potential term severely restricts the form of the latter. Nevertheless, suitable potentials exists that permit stable vacua. It is shown that the resulting model is equivalent, at low energy, to General Relativity in a fixed gauge. © 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd.