The Mixed Scalar Curvature of Almost-Product Metric-Affine Manifolds, II

We continue our study of the mixed Einstein–Hilbert action as a functional of a pseudo-Riemannian metric and a linear connection. Its geometrical part is the total mixed scalar curvature on a smooth manifold endowed with a distribution or a foliation. We develop variational formulas for quantities of extrinsic geometry of a distribution on a metric-affine space and use them to derive Euler–Lagrange equations (which in the case of space-time are analogous to those in Einstein–Cartan theory) and to characterize critical points of this action on vacuum space-time. Together with arbitrary variations of metric and connection, we consider also variations that partially preserve the metric, e.g., along the distribution, and also variations among distinguished classes of connections (e.g., statistical and metric compatible, and this is expressed in terms of restrictions on contorsion tensor). One of Euler–Lagrange equations of the mixed Einstein–Hilbert action is an analog of the Cartan spin connection equation, and the other can be presented in the form similar to the Einstein equation, with Ricci curvature replaced by the new Ricci type tensor. This tensor generally has a complicated form, but is given in the paper explicitly for variations among semi-symmetric connections.

Equiaffine Braneworld

Higher dimensional theories, wherein our four dimensional universe is immersed into a bulk ambient, have received much attention recently, and the directions of investigation had, as far as we can discern, all followed the ordinary Euclidean hypersurface theory’s isometric immersion recipe, with the spacetime metric being induced by an ambient parent. We note, in this paper, that the indefinite signature of the Lorentzian metric perhaps hints at the lesser known equiaffine hypersurface theory as being a possibly more natural, i.e., less customized beyond minimal mathematical formalism, description of our universe’s extrinsic geometry. In this alternative, the ambient is deprived of a metric, and the spacetime metric becomes conformal to the second fundamental form of the ordinary theory, therefore is automatically indefinite for hyperbolic shapes. Herein, we advocate investigations in this direction by identifying some potential physical benefits to enlisting the help of equiaffine differential geometry. In particular, we show that a geometric origin for dark energy can be proposed within this framework.