Spacetime Brout-Englert-Higgs effect in General Relativity interacting with p-brane matter

TL;DR

This paper reviews how the Brout-Englert-Higgs effect manifests in general relativity with point-like and extended p-brane objects, leading to brane sources in Einstein's equations while keeping the graviton massless.

Contribution

It discusses the realization of the Higgs-like mechanism in gravity interacting with p-branes and compares it with recent models of massive spin-2 fields.

Findings

Brane sources appear in Einstein equations without giving mass to the graviton.

The effect is similar to the Higgs mechanism in gauge theories.

Differences between this effect and massive gravity models are highlighted.

Abstract

We review the manifestation of the Brout-Englert-Higgs effect in general relativity interacting with point-like and extended objects (p-branes including string for p=1 and membrane for p=2), which manifests itself in the appearance of the brane source in the Einstein equation while the graviton remains massless (hep-th/0112207, hep-th/0507197 and refs therein), and discuss briefly its relation and differences with the model for massive spin 2 field proposed recently by G. t'Hooft in [arXiv:0708.3184 [hep-th]].