From Explicit Diffeomorphism Breaking to Spontaneous Unimodularization

Abstract

This contribution investigates modifications of General Relativity that allow or mimic energy nonconservation. We focus on Unimodular Gravity (UG), a theory that explicitly breaks diffeomorphism invariance, and show that it can lead to particle acceleration, opening the door to experimental constraints. We also argue that UG admits a well-posed initial value formulation, despite the presence of nondynamical structures. Finally, we introduce a simple model that spontaneously mimics UG, but in which a cosmological constant cannot arise as an integration constant.

Comments: Presented at the Tenth Meeting on CPT and Lorentz Symmetry, Bloomington, Indiana, May 15-19, 2025