Test matter in a spacetime with nonmetricity

Abstract

Examples in which spacetime might become non-Riemannian appear above Planck energies in string theory or, in the very early Universe, in the inflationary model. The simplest such geometry is metric-affine geometry, in which nonmetricity appears as a field strength, side by side with curvature and torsion. In matter, the shear and dilation currents couple to nonmetricity, and they are its sources. After reviewing the equations of motion and the Noether identities, we study two recent vacuum solutions of the metric-affine gauge theory of gravity. We then use the values of the nonmetricity in these solutions to study the motion of the appropriate test matter. As a Regge-trajectory-like hadronic excitation band, the test matter is endowed with shear degrees of freedom and described by a world spinor.