Related papers: Ostrogradsky in Theories with Multiple Fields
This is a brief review of modified gravity cosmologies. Generically extensions of gravity action involve higher derivative terms, which can result in ghosts and instabilities. There are three ways to circumvent this: Chern-Simons terms,…
In String Theory there often appears a rather interesting class of higher derivative theories containing an infinite set of derivatives in the form of an exponential. These theories may provide a way to tame ultraviolet divergences without…
The Ostrogradski ghost problem that appears in higher derivative theories containing constraints has been considered here. Specifically we have considered systems where only the second class constraints appear. For these kind of systems, it…
This article gives a concise overview of the development and current status of studies on healthy models of the early Universe without an initial singularity, namely the cosmological bounce and Genesis scenarios, constructed within a broad…
Recently it was argued that gravity with the squire of the Ricci tensor can be stabilized by adding constraints to the theory. This was so far demonstrated for fluctuations on the Minkowski/de Sitter background. We show that the same scheme…
Modified gravity theories can accommodate exact solutions, for which the metric has the same form as the one in general relativity, i.e., stealth solutions. One problem with these stealth solutions is that perturbations around them exhibit…
We consider Modified Gravity models involving inverse powers of fourth-order curvature invariants. Using these models' equivalence to the theory of a scalar field coupled to a linear combination of the invariants, we investigate the…
We consider higher-order derivative interactions beyond second-order generalized Proca theories that propagate only the three desired polarizations of a massive vector field besides the two tensor polarizations from gravity. These new…
We derive the most generic Carrollian higher derivative free scalar field theory intrinsically on a Carrollian manifold. The solutions to these theories are massless free particles propagating with speeds depending on the coupling constants…
Non-gravitating (stealth) scalar fields associated with Minkowski space in scalar-tensor gravity are examined. Analytical solutions for both non-minimally coupled scalar field theory and for Brans-Dicke gravity are studied and their…
Special gravity refers to interacting theories of massless gravitons in Minkowski space-time which are invariant under the abelian gauge invariance $h_{ab}\rightarrow h_{ab}+\partial_{(a}\chi_{b)}$ only. In this article we determine the…
Invertible disformal transformations serve as a useful tool to explore ghost-free scalar-tensor theories. In this paper, we construct a generalization of invertible disformal transformations that involves arbitrary higher-order covariant…
We explore the possibility of parity-violating, nonminimally coupled 2-form field theories that retain the same dynamical degrees of freedom as a massive 2-form and thus are ghost-free. Starting from the most general kinetic terms and…
We extend the effective field theory of inflation to a general Lagrangian constructed from Arnowitt-Deser-Misner variables that encompasses the most general interactions with up to second derivatives of the scalar field whose background…
A brief review of the physics of systems including higher derivatives in the Lagrangian is given. All such systems involve ghosts, i.e. the spectrum of the Hamiltonian is not bounded from below and the vacuum ground state is absent. Usually…
Scalar-tensor theories have shown promise in many sectors of cosmology. However, recent constraints from the speed of gravitational waves have put severe limits on the breadth of models such classes of theories can realize. In this work, we…
In the bibliography a certain confusion arises in what regards to the classification of the gravitational theories into scalar-tensor theories and general relativity with a scalar field either minimally or non-minimally coupled to matter.…
We consider Horndeski cosmological models able to screen the vacuum energy coming from any field theory assuming that after this screening the space should be in a de Sitter vacuum with a particular value of the cosmological constant…
It is commonly believed that the dRGT theory is the unique way to describe a massive spin-2 field without ghosts. While dRGT is arguably the most elegant massive gravity theory, it seems that it may not be the unique ghost-free one if one…
The tachyonic instability is associated with the unboundedness of the Hamiltonian from below and results in an unstable low-$k$ regime. In the cosmological exploration of modified gravity, it is seldom taken into account, with more focus…