The Planck mass and the cosmological constant determine the minimum and the maximum distances in the physical Universe. A relativistic theory, which takes into account a fundamental distance limit $\ell$ on par with the fundamental speed limit $c$, can be based on the de Sitter extension of the Lorentz symmetry. This article proposes a new de Sitter gauge theory of gravity, which allows for the consistent cosmological evolution of the $\ell$. The theory is locally equivalent to Dirac’s scale-invariant version of general relativity and suggests a novel nonsingular extension of cosmology.

• Received 2 February 2021
• Accepted 19 May 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.103.124063