Singularities, horizons, firewalls, and local conformal symmetry

Abstract

The Einstein-Hilbert theory of gravity can be rephrased by focusing on local conformal symmetry as an exact, but spontaneously broken symmetry of nature. The conformal component of the metric field is then treated as a dilaton field with only renormalizable interactions. This imposes constraints on the theory, which can also be viewed as demanding regularity of the action as the dilaton field variable tends to 0. In other words, we have constraints on the small distance behaviour. Our procedure appears to turn a black hole into a regular, topologically trivial soliton without singularities, horizons of firewalls, but many questions remain.