Dynamics of proper time in the theory of gravitation and conformal unification of interactions

The work is devoted to a description of the dynamics of proper time as a function of the evolutionary parameter, which can be separated from the Dirac-ADM metric in the Hamiltonian version of the general theory of relativity (GTR) and in conformally invariant, Lichnerowicz variables. In these variables, the GTR is equivalent to the conformally invariant, Penrose-Chernikov-Tagirov, scalar-field theory, with a quantity proportional to the scale factor playing the role of the scalar field. Identifying such a scalar field with the modulus of the Higgs field in the standard model, which unifies the electroweak and strong interactions, makes it possible to formulate a unified, conformally invariant theory in which the vacuum average of the scalar field is determined by integrals of motion of cosmological evolution. © 1999 Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.