Related papers: Removing Ostrogradski ghost from degenerate gravit…
Different routes towards the canonical formulation of a classical theory result in different canonically equivalent Hamiltonians, while their quantum counterparts are related through appropriate unitary transformation. However, for…
Higher order derivative theories, generally suffer from instabilities, known as Ostrogradsky instabilities. This issue can be resolved by removing any existing degeneracy present in such theories. We consider a model involving at most…
Theories with higher order time derivatives generically suffer from ghost-like instabilities, known as Ostrogradski instabilities. This fate can be avoided by considering "degenerate" Lagrangians, whose kinetic matrix cannot be inverted,…
In this work we develop a theoretical framework for Gauss-Bonnet modified gravity theories, in which ghost modes can be eliminated at the equations of motion level. Particularly, after we present how the ghosts can occur at the level of…
When one uses the Dirac bracket, second class constraints become first class. Hence, they are amenable to the BRST treatment characteristic of ordinary first class constraints. This observation is the starting point of a recent…
If a higher derivative theory arises from a transformation of variables that involves time derivatives, a tailor-made Hamiltonian formulation is shown to exist. The details and advantages of this elegant Hamiltonian formulation, which…
A {\em complex} canonical transformation is found that takes the fourth order derivative Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator into two independent harmonic oscillators thus showing that this model has energy bounded from below, unitary time-evolution…
In the generalized Hamiltonian formalism by Dirac, the method of constructing the generator of local-symmetry transformations for systems with first- and second-class constraints (without restrictions on the algebra of constraints) is…
We discuss exactly solvable systems involving integrals of motion with higher powers of momenta. If one of these integrals is chosen for the Hamiltonian, we obtain a higher-derivative system involving ghosts, i.e. a system whose Hamiltonian…
An extension of the bimetric theory of gravity is considered that includes quadratic Ricci curvature terms associated with each metric. The issue of the Boulware-Deser ghost is analyzed. The Hamiltonian constraint is derived and the…
The Ostrogradsky theorem states that any classical Lagrangian that contains time derivatives higher than the first order and is nondegenerate with respect to the highest-order derivatives leads to an unbounded Hamiltonian which linearly…
Gauge-invariant systems of a general form with higher order derivatives of gauge parameters are investigated within the framework of the BFV formalism. Higher order terms of the BRST charge and BRST-invariant Hamiltonian are obtained. It is…
We consider, in Minkowski spacetime, higher-order Maxwell Lagrangians with terms quadratic in the derivatives of the field strength tensor, and study their degrees of freedom. Using a 3+1 decomposition of these Lagrangians, we extract the…
We study the Hamiltonian structure of tri-gravity and four-gravity in the framework of ADM decomposition of the corresponding metrics. Hence we can deduce the general structure of the constraint system of multi-gravity. We will show it is…
Canonical quantization is reviewed here for the Abelian Lee-Wick model by using the Dirac constraints method, a Gupta-Bleuler-like prescription is implemented and the BRST charge operator for this model is built. New degrees of freedom…
We perform a Hamiltonian analysis and prove that a large class of scalar-tensor theories whose Lagrangian is given by a generic function $F\left(K_{ab},N,R_{ab},h^{ab},\nabla_a,t\right)$ is free from the Ostrogradsky ghost, and thus these…
We review how the (absence of) Ostrogradsky instability manifests itself in theories with multiple fields. It has recently been appreciated that when multiple fields are present, the existence of higher derivatives may not automatically…
We study co-existence system of both bosonic and fermionic degrees of freedom. For such system with up to first derivatives in Lagrangian, we find Ostrogradsky-type ghost-free condition in Hamiltonian analysis, which is found to be the same…
Recently, a generalization of invertible disformal transformations containing higher-order derivatives of a scalar field has been proposed in the context of scalar-tensor theories of gravity. By applying this generalized disformal…
In this paper, the ghost-freeness of the higher derivative theory proposed by Hassan et al. in [Universe 1 (2015) 2, 92] is investigated. Hassan et al. believed the ghost-freeness of the higher derivative theory based on the analysis in the…