Tying String Theory to Gravitation through Geodesics, Continued

Professor Vincent Rodgers

In understanding gravitation, experimentalist often use the paths of moving bodies, their geodesics, in order to infer the nature of the metric tensor as outlined in Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. However, it has been known for more than 100 years that the geodesics of a moving body cannot directly infer the metric. At best, the Einstein geodesic belongs to an equivalent class of other gravitating theories. In our work, we study these equivalent classes and have developed a gravitation theory, Thomas-Whitehead Gravity, that treats the equivalences as a gauge theory in the same spirit as the forces in the Standard Model of Fundamental Particles and Interactions. In this discussion, we review the mathematical symmetries of string theory, the Virasoro algebra, how we identified this symmetry with geodesics and demonstrate that dark energy and dark matter candidates naturally appear in this framework. We show some simple simulations of geodesics, discuss how fermions might anomalously interact with these dark candidates and discuss next steps in understanding gravitational renormalization via Thomas-Whitehead Gravity.

To participate in this event virtually via Zoom, go to https://uiowa.zoom.us/j/99570315915.