English

Higher curvature gravities, unlike GR, cannot be bootstrapped from their (usual) linearizations

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2017-11-08 v2 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We show that higher curvature order gravities, in particular the propagating quadratic curvature models, cannot be derived by self-coupling from their linear, flat space, forms, except through an unphysical version of linearization; only GR can. Separately, we comment on an early version of the self-coupling bootstrap.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1705.08938,
  title  = {Higher curvature gravities, unlike GR, cannot be bootstrapped from their (usual) linearizations},
  author = {S. Deser},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1705.08938},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

New title, reflecting essential changes in text and conclusions. GRG in press

R2 v1 2026-06-22T19:58:17.597Z