Local Conformal Symmetry: the Missing Symmetry Component for Space and Time

TL;DR

This paper argues that local conformal symmetry should be an exact, spontaneously broken symmetry, potentially revealing the fundamental structure of gravity and guiding us toward a unified understanding of physics at the Planck scale.

Contribution

It proposes turning local conformal symmetry into an exact, spontaneously broken symmetry, offering a new approach to understanding gravity's small-distance behavior.

Findings

Suggests local conformal symmetry as fundamental and exact

Provides a mechanism for revealing gravity's small-scale structure

Implications for physics at the Planck scale

Abstract

Local conformal symmetry is usually considered to be an approximate symmetry of nature, which is explicitly and badly broken. Arguments are brought forward here why it has to be turned into an exact symmetry that is spontaneously broken. As in the B.E.H. mechanism in Yang-Mills theories, we then will have a mechanism for disclosing the small-distance structure of the gravitational force. The symmetry could be as fundamental as Lorentz invariance, and guide us towards a complete understanding of physics at the Planck scale.