Gravitation of einstein-cartan revisited

Author(s)

Alberto Vazquez Saa

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Física (IF/SBI)
• Defense date: 1994-02-28

Examining board members

Josif Frenkel; Ruben Aldrovandi; Henrique Fleming; Victor de Oliveira Rivelles; Abraham Hirsz Zimerman

• Advisor: Josif Frenkel

Abstract

The role of space-time torsion in General Relativity is reviewed in this thesis. Through the analysis of volume forms in affine manifolds, it will be shown that the usual riemannian volume element is no! compatible with connections with non-vanishing torsion. A new volume element is proposed and used in the lagrangian formulation for Einstein-Cartan theory of gravity. By this new model, torsion can propagate and gauge fields can interact with torsion without breaking of gauge invariance. The new volume element can also provide a geometrical interpretation for the dilaton gravity by means of the non-riemannian quantities of space-time. (AU)