Robin Tucker (Lancaster University)
r.tucker@lancaster.ac.uk
An overview of the power of a non-Riemannian description of gravitation will be presented. In this context local Weyl and U(1) symmetries have a natural relevance to the origin of gravitational mass and electric charge of matter. It will be argued that a spontaneous breakdown of local Weyl invariance offers a mechanism in which gravitational interactions contribute to the generation of particle masses and their electric charge. The theory is formulated in terms of a spacetime geometry whose natural connection has both dynamic torsion and non-metricity. Its structure illuminates the role of dynamic scales used to determine measurable aspects of particle interactions and it predicts an additional neutral vector boson with electroweak properties.