Standard Electroweak Interactions in Gravitational Theory with Chameleon Field and Torsion

TL;DR

This paper develops a gravitational theory incorporating torsion induced by a chameleon field, extending Einstein-Cartan gravity, and explores its implications for electromagnetic and weak interactions, linking laboratory constraints to astrophysical phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a novel extension of Einstein-Cartan gravity with a chameleon-induced torsion field affecting electroweak interactions and relates experimental bounds to astrophysical sources.

Findings

Chameleon field contributes to electromagnetic and weak process observables.

Chameleon-photon coupling constant equals matter coupling constant, enabling laboratory constraints to inform astrophysical models.

Theoretical framework generalizes previous models to include torsion effects from chameleon fields.

Abstract

We propose a version of a gravitational theory with the torsion field, induced by the chameleon field. Following Hojman et al. Phys. Rev. D17, 3141 (1976) the results, obtained in Phys. Rev. D90, 045040 (2014), are generalised by extending the Einstein gravity to the Einstein-Cartan gravity with the torsion field as a gradient of the chameleon field through a modification of local gauge invariance of minimal coupling in the Weinberg-Salam electroweak model. The contributions of the chameleon (torsion) field to the observables of electromagnetic and weak processes are calculated. Since in our approach the chameleon-photon coupling constant beta_(gamma) is equal to the chameleon-matter coupling constant beta, i.e. beta_(gamma) = beta, the experimental constraints on beta, obtained in terrestrial laboratories by T. Jenke et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 115105 (2014)) and by H. Lemmel et al. (Phys. Lett. B743, 310 (2015)), can be used for the analysis of astrophysical sources of chameleons, proposed by C. Burrage et al. (Phys. Rev. D79, 044028 (2009)), A.-Ch. Davis et al. (Phys. Rev. D80, 064016 (2009), and in references therein, where chameleons induce photons because of direct chameleon-photon transitions in the magnetic fields.