Pith. sign in

REVIEW 2 cited by

A Modified Gravity Theory: Null Aether

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv 1604.02266 v5 pith:DM6HXR4S submitted 2016-04-08 gr-qc hep-th

classification gr-qchep-th
keywords solutionstheoryaetherfieldnullgravityexactbackground
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal

Signed reviews

No signed human review yet.

0 comments
abstract

General quantum gravity arguments predict that Lorentz symmetry might not hold exactly in nature. This has motivated much interest in Lorentz breaking gravity theories recently. Among such models are vector-tensor theories with preferred direction established at every point of spacetime by a fixed-norm vector field. The dynamical vector field defined in this way is referred to as the \textquotedblleft aether." In this paper, we put forward the idea of a \textit{null} aether field and introduce, for the first time, the Null Aether Theory (NAT)--a vector-tensor theory. We first study the Newtonian limit of this theory and then construct exact spherically symmetric black hole solutions in the theory in four dimensions, which contain Vaidya-type non-static solutions and static Schwarzschild-(A)dS type solutions, Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m-(A)dS type solutions and solutions of conformal gravity as special cases. Afterwards, we study the cosmological solutions in NAT: We find some exact solutions with perfect fluid distribution for spatially flat FLRW metric and null aether propagating along the $x$ direction. We observe that there are solutions in which the universe has big-bang singularity and null field diminishes asymptotically. We also study exact gravitational wave solutions--AdS-plane waves and $pp$-waves--in this theory in any dimension $D\geq3$. Assuming the Kerr-Schild-Kundt class of metrics for such solutions, we show that the full field equations of the theory are reduced to two, in general coupled, differential equations when the background metric assumes the maximally symmetric form. The main conclusion of these computations is that the spin-0 aether field acquires a \textquotedblleft mass" determined by the cosmological constant of the background spacetime and the Lagrange multiplier given in the theory.

Discussion (0). Continue with ORCID to comment.

Forward citations

Cited by 2 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

  1. K-essence sources of Kerr-Schild spacetimes

    gr-qc 2025-04 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    K-essence Lagrangians that can source Kerr-Schild spacetimes must be at most quadratic in the kinetic term, and linear when the congruence is autoparallel or when linearized solutions are also exact.

  2. Hodge Dual Gauge Symmetry in Minimal Einstein-Aether Theory

    gr-qc 2025-04 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    The minimal Einstein-aether vector field is the Hodge dual of a 3-form gauge field, making the two theories equivalent and showing that divergence-free aether fields are physically trivial.

Pith tools