Scale-invariance in gravity and implications for the cosmological constant

Abstract

Recently, a scale invariant theory was constructed by imposing a conformal symmetry on general relativity. The imposition of this symmetry changed the configuration space from superspace—the space of all Riemannian 3-metrics modulo diffeomorphisms—to conformal superspace—the space of all Riemannian 3-metrics modulo diffeomorphisms and conformal transformations. However, despite numerous attractive features, the theory suffers from at least one major problem: the volume of the universe is no longer a dynamical variable. In attempting to resolve this problem a new theory is found which has several surprising and attractive features from both quantization and cosmological perspectives. Furthermore, it is an extremely restrictive theory and thus may provide testable predictions quickly and easily. One particularly interesting feature of the theory is the resolution of the cosmological constant problem.