Related papers: Higher order derivative coupling to gravity and it…
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,…
The coupling of gravity to a scalar field raises a number of interesting questions of principle since the usual minimal coupling obtained by replacing ordinary derivatives with covariant derivatives is not available -- they are the same…
We elaborate on the inflationary model starting from multidimensional Lagrangian and gravity with second-order curvature terms. The effective scalar field is related to the Ricci scalar of extra dimensions. It is shown that the Kretschmann…
We constrain the viable models of Horndeski gravity, written in its equivalent Generalised Galileon version, by resorting to the Witten positive energy theorem. We find that the free function $G_3(\phi, X)$ in the Lagrangian is constrained…
We propose a new class of higher derivative scalar-tensor theories without the Ostrogradsky's ghost instabilities. The construction of our theory is originally motivated by a scalar field with spacelike gradient, which enables us to fix a…
The effective field theory (EFT) of cosmological perturbations is a useful framework to deal with the low-energy degrees of freedom present for inflation and dark energy. We review the EFT for modified gravitational theories by starting…
We consider all degenerate scalar-tensor theories that depend quadratically on second order derivatives of a scalar field, which we have identified in a previous work. These theories, whose degeneracy in general ensures the absence of…
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 construct higher-order curvature invariants in causal set quantum gravity. The motivation for this work is twofold: first, to characterize causal sets, discrete operators that encode geometric information on the emergent spacetime…
We present all scalar-tensor Lagrangians that are cubic in second derivatives of a scalar field, and that are degenerate, hence avoiding Ostrogradsky instabilities. Thanks to the existence of constraints, they propagate no more than three…
Higher-derivative operators are central elements of any effective field theory. In supersymmetric theories, these operators include terms with derivatives in the K\"ahler potential. We develop a toolkit for coupling such supersymmetric…
We study models where a scalar field has derivative and non-derivative couplings to the Ricci tensor and the co-Ricci tensor with a view to inflation. We consider both the metric formulation and the Palatini formulation. In the Palatini…
Any field, even if it lives in a completely hidden sector, interacts with the visible sector at least via the gravitational interaction. In this paper, we show that a scalar field in such a hidden sector generically couples to the quadratic…
We study new consistent scalar-tensor theories of gravity recently introduced by Langlois and Noui with potentially interesting cosmological applications. We derive the conditions for the existence of a primary constraint that prevents the…
We consider a subclass of Horndeski theories for studying cosmic inflation. In particular, we investigate models of inflation in which the derivative self-interaction of the scalar field and the non-minimal derivative coupling to gravity…
As an alternative to the covariant Ostrogradski method, we show that higher-derivative relativistic Lagrangian field theories can be reduced to second differential-order by writing them directly as covariant two-derivative theories…
We consider a novel model of gravity with a scalar field described by the Lagrangian with higher order derivative terms in a cosmological context. The model has the same solution for the homogeneous and isotropic universe as in the model…
It has been pointed out that matter bounce cosmology driven by a k-essence field cannot satisfy simultaneously the observational bounds on the tensor-to-scalar ratio and non-Gaussianity of the curvature perturbation. In this paper, we show…
One of the fundamental objectives of contemporary cosmology is to understand the physics of the inflationary universe, owing to its observably verifiable predictions about the very early universe with an energy scale of $\sim 10^{16}$ GeV.…
It is shown that a 4D N=1 softly broken supersymmetric theory with higher derivative operators in the Kahler or the superpotential part of the Lagrangian and with an otherwise arbitrary superpotential, can be re-formulated as a theory…