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We systematically study the most general Lorentz-violating graviton mass invariant under three-dimensional Eucledian group using the explicitly covariant language. We find that at general values of mass parameters the massive graviton has…
The aim of these notes is to provide a self-contained review of why it is generically a problem when a solution of a theory possesses ghost fields among the perturbation modes. We define what a ghost field is and we show that its presence…
Theories that spontaneously break Lorentz invariance also violate diffeomorphism symmetries, implying the existence of extra degrees of freedom and modifications of gravity. In the minimal model (``ghost condensation'') with only a single…
We show that general infrared modifications of the Einstein-Hilbert action obtained by addition of curvature invariants are not viable. These modifications contain either ghosts or light gravity scalars. A very specific fine-tuning might…
We explore perturbations about a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker background in Chern-Simons gravity. At large momenta one of the two circularly polarized tensor modes becomes ghostlike. We argue that nevertheless the theory does not exhibit…
While general relativity possesses local Lorentz invariance, both canonical quantum gravity and string theory suggest that Lorentz invariance may be broken at high energies. Broken Lorentz invariance has also been postulated as an…
We argue that theories with ghosts may have a long lived vacuum state even if all interactions are Lorentz preserving. In space-time dimension D = 2, we consider the tree level decay rate of the vacuum into ghosts and ordinary particles…
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…
We study nonlinear dynamics in models of Lorentz-violating massive gravity. The Boulware-Deser instability restricts severely the class of acceptable theories. We identify a model that is stable. It exhibits the following bizarre but…
In models of modified gravity, extra degrees of freedom usually appear. They must be removed from the spectrum because they may indicate the presence of instabilities and because otherwise the model might not agree with observation. In the…
Motivated by the severity of the bounds on Lorentz violation in the presence of ordinary gravity, we study frameworks in which Lorentz violation does not affect the spacetime geometry. We show that there are at least two inequivalent…
We review the interpretation of gauge invariance as a mathematical redundancy required in a relativistic description of forces mediated by massless spin-1 and spin-2 particles. In this context we also review the Weinberg-Witten theorem and…
We analyze the pattern of normal modes in linearized Lorentz-violating massive gravity over the 5-dimensional moduli space of mass terms. Ghost-free theories arise at bifurcation points when the ghosts get out of the spectrum of propagating…
We consider a model with Lorentz-violating vector field condensates, in which dispersion laws of all perturbations, including tensor modes, undergo non-trivial modification in the infrared. The model is free of ghosts and tachyons at high…
Understanding the role of higher derivatives is probably one of the most relevant questions in quantum gravity theory. Already at the semiclassical level, when gravity is a classical background for quantum matter fields, the action of…
We perform a systematic study of various versions of massive gravity with and without violation of Lorentz symmetry in arbitrary dimension. These theories are well known to possess very unusual properties, unfamiliar from studies of gauge…
The cosmological constant and its phenomenology remain among the greatest puzzles in theoretical physics. We review how modifications of Einstein's general relativity could alleviate the different problems associated with it that result…
We explore how the stability of metric perturbations in higher derivative theories of gravity depends on the energy scale of initial seeds of such perturbations and on a typical energy scale of the gravitational vacuum background. It is…
We construct effective field theories in which gravity is modified via spontaneous breaking of local Lorentz invariance. This is a gravitational analogue of the Higgs mechanism. These theories possess additional graviton modes and modified…
Lorentz invariance is a well known fundamental concept of special relativity but its violation is predicted by some variations of quantum gravity, string theory, and some alternatives to general relativity. We study neutrino oscillation at…