At the Frontier of Spacetime: Scalar-Tensor Theory, Bells Inequality, Machs Principle, Exotic Smoothness

Description

In this book, leading theorists present new contributions and reviews addressing longstanding challenges and ongoing progress in spacetime physics. In the anniversary year of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, developed 100 years ago, this collection reflects the subsequent and continuing fruitful development of spacetime theories. The volume is published in honour of Carl Brans on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Carl H. Brans, who also contributes personally, is a creative and independent researcher and one of the founders of the scalar-tensor theory, also known as Jordan-Brans-Dicke theory. In the present book, much space is devoted to scalar-tensor theories. Since the beginning of the 1990s, Brans has worked on new models of spacetime, collectively known as exotic smoothness, a field largely established by him. In this Festschrift, one finds an outstanding and unique collection of articles about exotic smoothness. Also featured are Bell's inequality and Mach's principle. Personal memories and historical aspects round off the collection. Front Matter....Pages i-xxvi 65 Years in and Around Relativity....Pages 1-37 Front Matter....Pages 39-40 Nonminimal Couplings in the Early Universe: Multifield Models of Inflation and the Latest Observations....Pages 41-57 A New Estimate of the Mass of the Gravitational Scalar Field for Dark Energy....Pages 59-75 Axion and Dilaton + Metric Emerge Jointly from an Electromagnetic Model Universe with Local and Linear Response Behavior....Pages 77-96 Gravitational Theories with Stable (anti-)de Sitter Backgrounds....Pages 97-114 Rotating Boson Stars....Pages 115-131 The Lambda-CDM Model Is Not an Universal Attractor of the Brans–Dicke Cosmology....Pages 133-157 New Setting for Spontaneous Gauge Symmetry Breaking?....Pages 159-162 The Brans-Dicke Theory and Its Experimental Tests....Pages 163-174 Front Matter....Pages 175-176 Mach’s Principle and the Origin of Inertia....Pages 177-187 The Significance of Measurement Independence for Bell Inequalities and Locality....Pages 189-204 Front Matter....Pages 205-206 Exotic Smoothness, Physics and Related Topics....Pages 207-216 Model and Set-Theoretic Aspects of Exotic Smoothness Structures on \(\mathbb {R}^4\) ....Pages 217-240 Exotic Smoothness on Spheres....Pages 241-246 Smooth Quantum Gravity: Exotic Smoothness and Quantum Gravity....Pages 247-308