A background-dependent approach to the theory of gravitation II. Relativistic gravitational equations

Abstract

On the basis of the results of Paper I and guided by a Machian view of nature, we find new gravitational equations which are background dependent. Such equations describe a purely geometrical theory of gravitation, and their dependence on the background structure is through the total energy-momentum tensor on the past sheet of the light cone of each space-time pointx [θμνx, say], i.e., through the integral on the past sheet of the light cone ofx of the parallel transport of the energy-momentum tensor from the space-time point in which it is defined tox along the geodesic connecting the two space-time points. Following Gursey, we assume that the source of the De Sitter metric is not the cosmological term, but, rather, the energy-momentum tensor of a “uniform distribution of mass scintillations” [Tμνx, say].Tμνx, indeed, turns out to be equal to the metric tensor times a constant factor. As a consequence, in any local inhomogeneity A of a space-time whose background structure is determined by the Perfect Cosmological Principle,θμν turns out to be approximately equal to the metric tensor times a constant factor, providedT=gαβTαβ is sufficiently small and the structure of the past sheet of the light cones of the space-time points belonging to Λ is not too much perturbed by the local gravitational field. As a consequence, in Λ the new equations approximately reduce to Einstein's equations. If one considers a “superuniverse model” in which our universe is considered as a local inhomogeneity in a De Sitter background, then from the above result there follows a fortiori the agreement of the new gravitational equations with the classical tests of gravitation. Furthermore, the dependence on the background structure is such that the new equations (i) incorporate the idea that the frame has to be fixeddirectly in connection with cosmological observations, and (ii) are singular in the absence of matter in the whole space-time. Moreover, (iii) the coupling constant turns out to be dimensionless in natural units (c=1=ħ), and (iv) a local inertial frame in a De Sitter background is determined by the condition that with respect to it the background structure is homogeneous in space and in time and is Lorentz invariant.