Lucy Zheng (U. of Tartu), The modified space-time structure and cosmological aspects of the spin(4) gauge theory

Wednesday 29 Oct 2025, 11:15 → 12:30 Europe/Stockholm

Albano 3: 6228 - Mega (22 seats) (Albano Building 3)

Abstract: 

The gauge theoretic formulations of gravitational theory have long been explored in the attempt to describe gravity in an analogous way to the rest of the fundamental forces. Following the Higgs mechanism in the standard model, a Higgs-like symmetry-breaking field in the gravitational theory is known to implement the cosmological constant while breaking de Sitter SO(1,4) symmetry into the Lorentz SO(1,3). 

It has been shown that a further symmetry breaking from SO(1,3) to SO(3), first proposed by Złośnik et al in 2018, provides a different description of time through a symmetry breaking scalar field “khronon” and gives rise to a geometric effect of gravitation “M” that behaves as ideal dust. The khronon theory has been studied more extensively in its single-handed sector, as this recovers an extension of GR. 

Recently, we have shown that the symmetry breaking from Spin(4) to SO(3) provides a new working framework of space-time, and studied a more general case where both left- and right-handed sectors are included. The study further supports the nature of “M” as a dark matter candidate, and we have examined the resulting modifications to the cosmology. 

This talk attempts to provide a comprehensible explanation for the spin(4) gauge theory and discuss its theoretical and cosmological implications.