Date of Award:

5-2013

Document Type:

Dissertation

Degree Name:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department:

Physics

Committee Chair(s)

James T. Wheeler

Committee

James T. Wheeler

Committee

David Peak

Committee

Charles G. Torre

Committee

Zhaohu Nie

Committee

Robert W. Schunk

Abstract

A gauge theory is a theory in which the governing functional, known as the action, remains invariant under a continuous group of local transformations that form its symmetry. Each of the known fundamental interactions in the universe, such as electricity and magnetism, can be explained as arising from a particular gauge theory. Gravitation is no exception. Just as calculus can be used to find the value of a variable that maximizes or minimizes a function, calculus of variations can be used to find the equations, known as the field equations, that extremize the action, and these are the main equations of interest. Solving, or finding solutions to these equations, provides the physical predictions or describes the expected physical results from a particular theory. Different actions with different symmetries may or may not be equivalent. In this work, we consider a theory of gravity whose action is invariant under local scale transformations, but as a gauge theory under the microscope of the entire range of such transformations. We show what the implications are and how this might give a better and fuller description of reality.

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