This is an introduction to quantum gravity, aimed at a fairly general audience and concentrating on what have historically been the two main approaches to quantum gravity: the covariant and canonical programs (string theory is not covered). The quantization of gravity is discussed by analogy with the quantization of the electromagnetic field. The conceptual and technical problems of both approa...

Three GOCE-based gravity field solutions have been computed by ESA’s high-level processing facility and were released to the user community. All models are accompanied by variance-covariance information resulting either from the least squares procedure or a Monte-Carlo approach. In order to obtain independent external quality parameters and to assess the current performance of these models, a s...

We examine the effect of self-gravity in a rotating thick-disk equilibrium in the presence of a dipolar magnetic field. In the first part, we find a self-similar solution for non-self-gravitating disks. The solution that we have found shows that the pressure and density equilibrium profiles are strongly modified by a self-consistent toroidal magnetic field. We introduce 3 dimensionless variable...

This paper consolidates the no scalar hair theorem for a charged spherically symmetric black hole in four dimensions in general relativity as well as in all scalar tensor theories, both minimally and nonminimally coupled, when the effective Newtonian constant of gravity is positive. However, there is an exception when the matter field itself is coupled to the scalar field, such as in dilaton gr...

The orbit and instrumental measurement of the Gravity Field and Steady State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite mission offer the highest ever resolution capabilities for mapping Earth’s gravity field from space. However, past analysis predicted that GOCE would not detect changes in ice sheet mass. Here we demonstrate that GOCE gravity gradiometry observations can be combined with Grav...

We attempt to generalize the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence to nonrelativistic conformal field theories which are invariant under Galilean transformations. Such systems govern ultracold atoms at unitarity, nucleon scattering in some channels, and, more generally, a family of universality classes of quantum critical behavior. We construct a family of metrics which realize t...

Article history: Received 18 April 2015 Accepted 16 July 2015 Available online 28 July 2015 Editor: M. Cvetič Massive gravity (mGR) describes a dynamical “metric” on a fiducial, background one. We investigate fluctuations of the dynamics about mGR solutions, that is about its “mean field theory”. Analyzing mean field massive gravity (mGR) propagation characteristics is not only equivalent to st...

The notions of mass and range of a Brans-Dicke-like scalar field in scalar-tensor and f(R) gravity are subject to an ambiguity that hides a potential trap. We spell out this ambiguity and identify a physically meaningful and practical definition for these quantities. This is relevant when giving a mass to this scalar in order to circumvent experimental limits on the PPN parameters coming from S...