Related papers: Living with ghosts in Lorentz invariant theories
We construct a fully covariant theory of massive gravity which does not require the introduction of an external reference metric, and overcomes the usual problems of massive gravity theories (fatal ghosts instabilities, acausality and/or…
Spacetime---the union of space and time---is both the actor and the stage during physical processes in our fascinating Universe. In Lorentz invariant local theories, the existence of a maximum signalling speed (the "speed of light")…
We explore the possibility that theories with negative kinetic energy (ghosts) can be meta-stable up to cosmologically long times. In classical mechanics, ghosts undergo spontaneous lockdown rather than run-away if weakly-coupled and…
In the recently proposed non-local theory of quantum gravity one can avoid massive tensor ghosts at the tree level by a special choice of the non-local form factor between the two Ricci tensors. We show that at the quantum level this theory…
We use data from observational cosmology to put constraints on higher-dimensional extensions of general relativity in which the effective four-dimensional dark-energy density (or cosmological "constant") decays with time. In particular we…
Phantom scalar theories are widely considered in cosmology, but rarely at the quantum level, where they give rise to negative-energy ghost particles. These cause decay of the vacuum into gravitons and photons, violating observational…
We examine local physics in the presence of global variables: variables associated with the whole of the spacelike surfaces of a foliation. These could be the (pseudo-)constants of nature and their conjugate times, but our statements are…
A theory with the action combining the Einstein--Hilbert term and graviton mass terms violating Lorentz invariance is considered at linearized level about Minkowskian background. It is shown that with one of the masses set equal to zero,…
If textbook Lorentz invariance is actually a property of the equations describing a sector of the excitations of vacuum above some critical distance scale, several sectors of matter with different critical speeds in vacuum can coexist and…
We encounter these demons on the path towards a UV complete QFT of gravity and a horizonless replacement for black holes. The fate of the ghost is discussed in the strong coupling version of classically-scale-invariant quadratic gravity.…
Recently, questions have been raised about the role of Lorentz invariance in false vacuum decay. It has been argued that infinities may arise in an integration over Lorentz-boosted final states. This suggestion motivates a Minkowski-space…
If textbook Lorentz invariance is actually a property of the equations describing a sector of the excitations of vacuum above some critical distance scale, several sectors of matter with different critical speeds in vacuum can coexist and…
Interacting theories with higher derivatives involve ghosts. They correspond to instabilities that display themselves at the classical level. We notice that comparatively "benign" mechanical higher-derivative systems exist where the…
We review some of the recent results which can be useful for better understanding of the problem of stability of vacuum and in general classical solutions in higher derivative quantum gravity. The fourth derivative terms in the purely…
The energy in the ghost-free massive gravity theory is calculated via explicitly resolving the initial value constraints for spherically symmetric deformations of flat space. It turns out that the energy is positive in some cases, but in…
Lorentz-invariant massive gravity is usually associated with a strong coupling scale $\Lambda_3$. By including non-trivial effects from the Stueckelberg modes, we show that about these vacua, one can push the strong coupling scale to higher…
We consider the kinematical and dynamical evolution of Friedmann universes with a mixture of non-interacting matter and a ghost-like field, in a scenario analogous to that advocated by the Quintom model. Assuming that the conventional…
We show that the ghost degrees of freedom of Einstein gravity with a Weyl term can be eliminated by a simple mechanism that invokes local Lorentz symmetry breaking. We demonstrate how the mechanism works in a cosmological setting. The…
The universe's current acceleration is a pretty recent phenomenon in cosmological time scales. This means that the modes that have left our horizon since the beginning of the contemporary acceleration phase, have not really reached the…
We present the details of the novel framework for Lagrangian field theories that are Lorentz-invariant and lead to at most second order equations of motion. The use of antisymmetric structure is of crucial importance. The general ghost-free…