English

Consistent massive graviton on arbitrary backgrounds

High Energy Physics - Theory 2015-05-18 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

We obtain the fully covariant linearized field equations for the metric perturbation in the de Rham-Gabadadze-Tolley (dRGT) ghost free massive gravities. For a subset of these theories, we show that the non dynamical metric that appears in the dRGT setup can be completely eliminated leading to the theory of a massive graviton moving in a single metric. This has a mass term which contains non trivial contributions of the space-time curvature. We show further how 5 covariant constraints can be obtained including one which leads to the tracelessness of the graviton on flat space-time and removes the Boulware-Deser ghost. The 5 constraints are obtained for a background metric which is arbitrary, i.e. which does not have to obey the background field equations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1410.8302,
  title  = {Consistent massive graviton on arbitrary backgrounds},
  author = {Laura Bernard and Cedric Deffayet and Mikael von Strauss},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1410.8302},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

Latex, 5 pages. Matches published version

R2 v1 2026-06-22T06:41:36.355Z