Turning on gravity with the Higgs mechanism

TL;DR

This paper explores a theoretical framework where the Higgs mechanism influences the emergence of gravity, suggesting that gravity could be turned off at high energies and reactivated after symmetry breaking, with significant cosmological implications.

Contribution

It proposes a novel scenario linking the Higgs mechanism to the emergence and suppression of gravity, including the possibility of gravity being a topological field theory in the symmetric phase.

Findings

Gravity can be 'turned off' at high energies in certain Higgs-based models.

Gravity's dynamical degrees of freedom may only appear after symmetry breaking.

In some models, Newton's constant vanishes in the unbroken phase, decoupling matter and gravity.

Abstract

We investigate how a Higgs mechanism could be responsible for the emergence of gravity in extensions of Einstein theory. In this scenario, at high energies, symmetry restoration could "turn off" gravity, with dramatic implications for cosmology and quantum gravity. The sense in which gravity is muted depends on the details of the implementation. In the most extreme case gravity's dynamical degrees of freedom would only be unleashed after the Higgs field acquires a non-trivial vacuum expectation value, with gravity reduced to a topological field theory in the symmetric phase. We might also identify the Higgs and the Brans-Dicke fields in such a way that in the unbroken phase Newton's constant vanishes, decoupling matter and gravity. We discuss the broad implications of these scenarios.