Spontaneous breakdown of the vacuum in the gauge-covariant theory of gravitation

Abstract

The gauge-covariant theory of gravitation (GCTG) is a successful approach to cosmology that has been developed in the last three years by the authors of ref. (1). We disregard the cosmological applications of such a theory in this letter, and we address ourselves to examining the basic aspects of the theory as well as the consistency with their own postulates. The GCTG begins by examining the idea of different systems of units. Theories which exhibit ful] invariance under Weyl's scale transformations do not define a particular scale of length, so they are valid in any system of units. On the contrary, theories which break scale invarianee do set a particular system o /un i t s . In the case of gravitation (or general relativity) Einstein 's equations of motion are known not to be Weyl's scale invariant and therefore they immediately set the system of gravitational units. Conversely, such a system is defined as the one in which Einstein's equations hold.