English

Covariant constraints in ghost free massive gravity

High Energy Physics - Theory 2013-02-12 v3 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

We show that the reformulation of the de Rham-Gabadadze-Tolley massive gravity theory using vielbeins leads to a very simple and covariant way to count constraints, and hence degrees of freedom. Our method singles out a subset of theories, in the de Rham-Gabadadze-Tolley family, where an extra constraint, needed to eliminate the Boulware Deser ghost, is easily seen to appear. As a side result, we also introduce a new method, different from the Stuckelberg trick, to extract kinetic terms for the polarizations propagating in addition to those of the massless graviton.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1207.6338,
  title  = {Covariant constraints in ghost free massive gravity},
  author = {C. Deffayet and J. Mourad and G. Zahariade},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1207.6338},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

25 pages. Published version

R2 v1 2026-06-21T21:42:08.254Z