Related papers: Exorcising Ghosts in Induced Gravity
We generalize the scale invariant gravity by allowing a negative kinetic energy term for the classical scalar field. This gives birth to a new scalar-tensor theory of gravity, in which the scalar field is in fact an auxiliary field. For a…
We combine the ghost-free bimetric theory of gravity with the concept of local Weyl invariance, realized in the framework of Einstein-Cartan gravity. The gravitational sector, characterized by two independent metrics and two independent…
Numerous claims in the literature suggest that gravity induced on a higher co-dimensional surface violates unitarity in the weak coupling regime. However, it remained unclear, why a conserved source localized on this surface and giving rise…
Just like the vector bosons in Abelian and non-Abelian gauge theories, gravitons can attain mass by spontaneous local symmetry breaking. The question is whether this can happen in a Lorentz-invariant way. We consider the use of four scalar…
We show that classically scale invariant gravity coupled to a single scalar field can undergo dimensional transmutation and generate an effective Einstein-Hilbert action for gravity, coupled to a massive dilaton. The same theory has an…
A global scale-invariant Dark Energy model based on Induced Gravity with the addition of a small $R^2$ contribution is examined. The scalar field (quintessence), playing the role of Dark Energy, has a quartic potential and generates…
We investigate the cosmological applications of a bi-scalar modified gravity that exhibits partial conformal invariance, which could become full conformal invariance in the absence of the usual Einstein-Hilbert term and introducing…
In this work we shall address the ghost issue of $F\left( R,\mathcal{G} \right)$ gravity, which is known to be plagued with ghost degrees of freedom. These ghosts occur due to the presence of higher than two derivatives in the field…
In this paper we consider Quadratic Gravity as a low energy effective field theory of some unknown UV-complete theory of gravity. Using the spin-2 ghost pathology that occurs in Quadratic Gravity, we derive maximum value for the classical…
We introduce new techniques that can preserve unitarity of the system including ghost particles. Negative norms of the particles can be involved in zero-norm states by constraints of the physical space. These are useful to apply the…
As an illustration of a renormalizable, asymptotically-free model of induced gravity, we consider an $SO(10)$ gauge theory interacting with a real scalar multiplet in the adjoint representation. We show that dimensional transmutation can…
"Brane Induced Gravity" is regarded as a promising framework for addressing the cosmological constant problem, but it also suffers from a ghost instability for parameter values that make it phenomenologically viable. We carry out a detailed…
Many theories of modified gravity with higher order derivatives are usually ignored because of serious problems that appear due to an additional ghost degree of freedom. Most dangerously, it causes an immediate decay of the vacuum. However,…
General Relativity (GR) is an effective field theory valid in the infrared regime. Quadratic curvature extensions intended to probe ultraviolet physics generically propagate a massive spin-$2$ ghost and are therefore non-unitary. One route…
We consider gauge invariant cosmological perturbations in UV-modified, z=3 Horava gravity with one scalar matter field, which has been proposed as a renormalizable gravity theory without the ghost problem in four dimensions. In order to…
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…
A class of dynamical dark energy models is constructed through an extended version of fermion fields corresponding to phantom dark ghost spinors, which are spin one half with mass dimension one. We find that if these spinors interact with…
We study gravity coupled to a cosmological constant and a scale but not conformally invariant sector. In Minkowski vacuum, scale invariance is spontaneously broken. We consider small fluctuations around the Minkowski vacuum. At the…
Poincar\'e gauge theories provide an approach to gravity based on the gauging of the Poincar\'e group, whose homogeneous part generates curvature while the translational sector gives rise to torsion. In this note we revisit the stability of…
We propose a new class of gravity-matter models defined in terms of two independent non-Riemannian volume forms (alternative generally covariant integration measure densities) on the spacetime manifold. For the matter we choose appropriate…