Absence of cosmological constant problem in special relativistic field theory of gravity

TL;DR

This paper presents a special relativistic field theory of gravity that naturally avoids the cosmological constant problem, aligns with experimental tests, and challenges the assumption that gravity must be structurally identical to general relativity.

Contribution

It introduces a nonlinear gravity theory not equivalent to general relativity, demonstrating that the cosmological constant problem can be circumvented in flat spacetime.

Findings

The theory describes a free helicity ±2 graviton in the non-interacting limit.

It can be derived via self-coupling similar to general relativity.

Vacuum zero-point energies decouple from matter in this framework.

Abstract

The principles of quantum field theory in flat spacetime suggest that gravity is mediated by a massless particle with helicity $\pm2$, the so-called graviton. It is regarded as textbook knowledge that, when the self-coupling of a particle with these properties is considered, the long-wavelength structure of such a nonlinear theory is fixed to be that of general relativity. However, here we show that these arguments conceal an implicit assumption which is surreptitiously motivated by the very knowledge of general relativity. This is shown by providing a counterexample: we revisit a nonlinear theory of gravity which is not structurally equivalent to general relativity and that, in the non-interacting limit, describes a free helicity $\pm2$ graviton. We explicitly prove that this theory can be understood as the result of self-coupling in complete parallelism to the well-known case of general relativity. The assumption which was seen as natural in previous analyses but biased the result is pointed out. This special relativistic field theory of gravity implies the decoupling of vacuum zero-point energies of matter and passes all the known experimental tests in gravitation.