Gravity from symmetry breaking phase transition

Abstract: The paper is devoted to the memory of Dmitry Diakonov. We discuss gravity emerging in the fermionic vacuum as suggested by Diakonov 10 years ago in his paper "Towards lattice-regularized Quantum Gravity". Gravity emerges in the phase transition. The order parameter in this transition is the tetrad field, which appears as the bilinear composite of the fermionic fields. This symmetry breaking gives 6 Nambu-Goldstone modes; 6 gauge bosons in the spin-connection fields, which absorb 6 NG modes and become massive gauge bosons; and 6 Higgs fields. The similar scenario of the symmetry breaking with appearance of the $5+1$ Higgs gravitons takes place in the B-phase of superfluid $^3$He. While in $^3$He-B these Higgs modes are all massive, in the GR these Higgs collective modes give rise to two massless gravitational waves.