Teleparallelism

Teleparallelism (also called teleparallel

gravity), was an attempt by Albert
Einstein[1] to base a unified theory of
electromagnetism and gravity on the
mathematical structure of distant
parallelism, also referred to as absolute or
teleparallelism. In this theory, a spacetime
is characterized by a curvature-free linear
connection in conjunction with a metric
tensor field, both defined in terms of a
dynamical tetrad field.

Teleparallel spacetimes
The crucial new idea, for Einstein, was the
introduction of a tetrad field, i.e., a set
{X1, X2, X3, X4} of four vector fields
defined on all of M such that for every
p ∈ M the set {X1(p), X2(p), X3(p), X4(p)}
is a basis of TpM, where TpM denotes the
fiber over p of the tangent vector bundle
TM. Hence, the four-dimensional
spacetime manifold M must be a
parallelizable manifold. The tetrad field
was introduced to allow the distant
comparison of the direction of tangent
vectors at different points of the manifold,
hence the name distant parallelism. His
attempt failed because there was no
Schwarzschild solution in his simplified
field equation.

In fact, one can define the connection of

the parallelization (also called the
Weitzenböck connection) {Xi} to be the
linear connection ∇ on M such that [2]

where v ∈ TpM and f i are (global)

functions on M; thus f iXi is a global vector
field on M. In other words, the coefficients
of Weitzenböck connection ∇ with respect
to {Xi} are all identically zero, implicitly
defined by:

hence

for the connection coefficients (also called

Weitzenböck coefficients) in this global
basis. Here ωk is the dual global basis (or
i
coframe) defined by ωi(Xj) = δj.

This is what usually happens in Rn, in any

affine space or Lie group (for example the
'curved' sphere S3 but 'Weitzenböck flat'
manifold).

Using the transformation law of a

connection, or equivalently the ∇
properties, we have the following result.

Proposition. In a natural basis,

associated with local
coordinates (U, xμ), i.e., in the
holonomic frame ∂μ, the (local)
connection coefficients of the
Weitzenböck connection are
given by:
 μ
where Xi = hi ∂μ for i, μ = 1, 2,… n
are the local expressions of a
global object, that is, the given
tetrad.

The Weitzenböck connection has

vanishing curvature, but – in general –
non-vanishing torsion.

Given the frame field {Xi}, one can also

define a metric by conceiving of the frame
field as an orthonormal vector field. One
would then obtain a pseudo-Riemannian
metric tensor field g of signature (3,1) by
where

The corresponding underlying spacetime

is called, in this case, a Weitzenböck
spacetime.[3]

It is worth noting to see that these 'parallel

vector fields' give rise to the metric tensor
as a byproduct.

New teleparallel gravity

theory
New teleparallel gravity theory (or new
general relativity) is a theory of gravitation
on Weitzenböck spacetime, and attributes
gravitation to the torsion tensor formed of
the parallel vector fields.

In the new teleparallel gravity theory the

fundamental assumptions are as follows:

A. Underlying spacetime is the

Weitzenböck spacetime, which has a
quadruplet of parallel vector fields as the
fundamental structure. These parallel
vector fields give rise to the metric tensor
as a by-product. All physical laws are
expressed by equations that are covariant
or form invariant under the group of
general coordinate transformations.
B. The equivalence principle is valid only in
classical physics.
C. Gravitational field equations are
derivable from the action principle.
D. The field equations are partial
differential equations in the field variables
of not higher than the second order.

In 1961 Christian Møller[4] revived

Einstein’s idea, and Pellegrini and
Plebanski[5] found a Lagrangian
formulation for absolute parallelism.

Møller tetrad theory of

gravitation

In 1961, Møller[4][6] showed that a tetrad

description of gravitational fields allows a
more rational treatment of the energy-
momentum complex than in a theory
based on the metric tensor alone. The
advantage of using tetrads as gravitational
variables was connected with the fact that
this allowed to construct expressions for
the energy-momentum complex which had
more satisfactory transformation
properties than in a purely metric
formulation. Recently it has been shown
that total energy of matter and gravitation
is proportional to the Ricci scalar of three-
space up to linear order of perturbation.[7]

New translation teleparallel

gauge theory of gravity
Independently in 1967, Hayashi and
Nakano[8] revived Einstein’s idea, and
Pellegrini and Plebanski[5] started to
formulate the gauge theory of the space-
time translation group. Hayashi pointed
out the connection between the gauge
theory of the spacetime translation group
and absolute parallelism. The first fiber
bundle formulation was provided by Cho.[9]
This model was later studied by Schweizer
et al.,[10] Nitsch and Hehl, Meyer, and more
recent advances can be found in
Aldrovandi and Pereira, Gronwald, Itin,
Maluf and da Rocha Neto, Münch,
Obukhov and Pereira, and Schucking and
Surowitz.

Nowadays, people study teleparallelism

purely as a theory of gravity[11] without
trying to unify it with electromagnetism. In
this theory, the gravitational field turns out
to be fully represented by the translational
gauge potential Baμ, as it should be for a
gauge theory for the translation group.
If this choice is made, then there is no
longer any Lorentz gauge symmetry
because the internal Minkowski space
fiber—over each point of the spacetime
manifold—belongs to a fiber bundle with
the Abelian R4 as structure group.
However, a translational gauge symmetry
may be introduced thus: Instead of seeing
tetrads as fundamental, we introduce a
fundamental R4 translational gauge
symmetry instead (which acts upon the
internal Minkowski space fibers affinely so
that this fiber is once again made local)
with a connection B and a "coordinate
field" x taking on values in the Minkowski
space fiber.
More precisely, let π : M → M be the
Minkowski fiber bundle over the spacetime
manifold M. For each point p ∈ M, the
fiber Mp is an affine space. In a fiber chart
(V, ψ), coordinates are usually denoted by
ψ = (xμ, xa), where xμ are coordinates on
spacetime manifold M, and xa are
coordinates in the fiber Mp.

Using the abstract index notation, let

a, b, c,… refer to Mp and μ, ν,… refer to the
tangent bundle TM. In any particular
gauge, the value of xa at the point p is
given by the section
The covariant derivative

is defined with respect to the connection

form B, a 1-form assuming values in the
Lie algebra of the translational abelian
group R4. Here, d is the exterior derivative
of the ath component of x, which is a
scalar field (so this isn't a pure abstract
index notation). Under a gauge
transformation by the translation field αa,

and
and so, the covariant derivative of
xa = ξa(p) is gauge invariant. This is
identified with the translational (co-)tetrad

which is a one-form which takes on values

in the Lie algebra of the translational
Abelian group R4, whence it is gauge
invariant.[12] But what does this mean?
xa = ξa(p) is a local section of the (pure
translational) affine internal bundle
M → M, another important structure in
addition to the translational gauge field
Baμ. Geometrically, this field determines
the origin of the affine spaces; it is known
as Cartan’s radius vector. In the gauge-
theoretic framework, the one-form

arises as the nonlinear translational gauge

field with ξa interpreted as the Goldstone
field describing the spontaneous breaking
of the translational symmetry.

A crude analogy: Think of Mp as the

computer screen and the internal
displacement as the position of the mouse
pointer. Think of a curved mousepad as
spacetime and the position of the mouse
as the position. Keeping the orientation of
the mouse fixed, if we move the mouse
about the curved mousepad, the position
of the mouse pointer (internal
displacement) also changes and this
change is path dependent; i.e., it doesn't
only depend upon the initial and final
position of the mouse. The change in the
internal displacement as we move the
mouse about a closed path on the
mousepad is the torsion.

Another crude analogy: Think of a crystal

with line defects (edge dislocations and
screw dislocations but not disclinations).
The parallel transport of a point of M along
a path is given by counting the number of
(up/down, forward/backwards and
left/right) crystal bonds transversed. The
Burgers vector corresponds to the torsion.
Disinclinations correspond to curvature,
which is why they are left out.

The torsion, i.e., the translational field

strength of Teleparallel Gravity (or the
translational "curvature"),

is gauge invariant.

Of course, we can always choose the

gauge where xa is zero everywhere (a
problem though; Mp is an affine space and
also a fiber and so, we have to define the
origin on a point by point basis, but this
can always be done arbitrarily) and this
leads us back to the theory where the
tetrad is fundamental.

Teleparallelism refers to any theory of

gravitation based upon this framework.
There is a particular choice of the action
which makes it exactly equivalent[9] to
general relativity, but there are also other
choices of the action which are not
equivalent to GR. In some of these
theories, there is no equivalence between
inertial and gravitational masses.
Unlike GR, gravity is not due to the
curvature of spacetime. It is due to the
torsion.

Non-gravitational contexts
There exists a close analogy of geometry
of spacetime with the structure of defects
in crystal.[13][14] Dislocations are
represented by torsion, disclinations by
curvature. These defects are not
independent of each other. A dislocation is
equivalent to a disclination-antidisclination
pair, a disclination is equivalent to a string
of dislocations. This is the basic reason
why Einstein's theory based purely on
curvature can be rewritten as a teleparallel
theory based only on torsion. There exists,
moreover, infinitely many ways of rewriting
Einstein's theory, depending on how much
of the curvature one wants to reexpress in
terms of torsion, the teleparallel theory
being merely one specific version of
these.[15]

A further application of teleparallelism

occurs in quantum field theory, namely,
two-dimensional non-linear sigma models
with target space on simple geometric
manifolds, whose renormalization
behavior is controlled by a Ricci flow,
which includes torsion. This torsion
modifies the Ricci tensor and hence leads
to an infrared fixed point for the coupling,
on account of teleparallelism
("geometrostasis").[16]

See also
Classical theories of gravitation
Gauge gravitation theory

References
1. Einstein, Albert (1928). "Riemann-
Geometrie mit Aufrechterhaltung des
Begriffes des Fernparallelismus".
Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften,
Phys.-math. Klasse, Sitzungsberichte.
1928: 217–221.
2. Bishop, R. L.; Goldberg, S. I. (1968).
Tensor Analysis on Manifolds. p. 223.
3. "On the History of Unified Field
Theories" .
4. Møller, Christian (1961). "Conservation
laws and absolute parallelism in general
relativity". Mat. Fys. Dan. Vid. Selsk. 1 (10):
1–50.
5. Pellegrini, C.; Plebanski, J. (1963).
"Tetrad fields and gravitational fields". Mat.
Fys. Skr. Dan. Vid. Selsk. 2 (4): 1–39.
6. Møller, Christian (1961). "Further remarks
on the localization of the energy in the
general theory of relativity". Ann. Phys. 12
(1): 118–133.
Bibcode:1961AnPhy..12..118M .
doi:10.1016/0003-4916(61)90148-8 .
7. Abedi, Habib; Salti, Mustafa (2015-07-
31). "Multiple field modified gravity and
localized energy in teleparallel framework".
General Relativity and Gravitation. 47 (8):
93. Bibcode:2015GReGr..47...93A .
doi:10.1007/s10714-015-1935-z .
ISSN 0001-7701 .
8. Hayashi, K.; Nakano, T. (1967). "Extended
Translation Invariance and Associated
Gauge Fields". Prog. Theor. Phys. 38 (2):
491–507. Bibcode:1967PThPh..38..491H .
doi:10.1143/ptp.38.491 .
9. Cho, Y.-M. (1976). "Einstein Lagrangian
as the translational Yang–Mills
Lagrangian". Physical Review D. 14 (10):
2521. Bibcode:1976PhRvD..14.2521C .
doi:10.1103/physrevd.14.2521 .
10. Schweizer, M.; Straumann, N.; Wipf, A.
(1980). "Postnewtonian generation of
gravitational waves in a theory of gravity
with torsion". Gen. Rel. Grav. 12 (11): 951–
961. Bibcode:1980GReGr..12..951S .
doi:10.1007/bf00757366 .
11. Arcos, H. I.; Pereira, J. G. (January
2005). "Torsion Gravity: a Reappraisal". Int.
J. Mod. Phys. D. 13 (10): 2193–2240.
arXiv:gr-qc/0501017 .
Bibcode:2004IJMPD..13.2193A .
doi:10.1142/S0218271804006462 .
12. Hehl, F. W.; McCrea, J. D.; Mielke, E. W.;
Ne’eman, Y. (1995). "Metric-affine gauge
theory of gravity: field equations, Noether
identities, world spinors, and breaking of
dilation invariance". Phys. Rep. 258 (1): 1–
171. arXiv:gr-qc/9402012 .
Bibcode:1995PhR...258....1H .
doi:10.1016/0370-1573(94)00111-F .
13. Kleinert, Hagen (1989). Gauge Fields in
Condensed Matter Vol II . pp. 743–1440.
14. Kleinert, Hagen (2008). Multivalued
Fields in Condensed Matter,
Electromagnetism, and Gravitation (PDF).
pp. 1–496.
15. Kleinert, Hagen (2010). "New Gauge
Symmetry in Gravity and the Evanescent
Role of Torsion" (PDF). Electron. J. Theor.
Phys. 24: 287–298.
16. Braaten, E.; Curtright, T. L.; Zachos, C. K.
(1985). "Torsion and geometrostasis in
nonlinear sigma models". Nuclear Physics
B. 260 (3–4): 630.
Bibcode:1985NuPhB.260..630B .
doi:10.1016/0550-3213(85)90053-7 .

Further reading
 Bishop, R. L.; Goldberg, S. I. (1968).
Tensor Analysis on Manifolds (First
Dover 1980 ed.). Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-
486-64039-6.
Weitzenböck, R. (1923).
Invariantentheorie. Groningen:
Noordhoff.
Aldrovandi, R.; Pereira, J. G. (2012).
Teleparallel Gravity: An Introduction.
Springer: Dordrecht. ISBN 978-94-007-
5142-2.

External links
Teleparallel gravity in nLab
 Teleparallel Structures and Gravity
Theories by Luca Bombelli
Selected Papers on Teleparallelism,
translated and edited by D. H.
Delphenich

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