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We construct a supersymmetric (1+1)-dimensional field theory involving extra derivatives and associated ghosts: the spectrum of the Hamiltonian is not bounded from below, neither from above. In spite of that, there is neither classical, nor…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2015-06-16 A. V. Smilga

The existence of a ghost free theory of massive gravity begs for an interpretation as a Higgs phase of General Relativity. We revisit the study of massive gravity as a Higgs phase. Absent a compelling microphysical model of spontaneous…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2015-08-06 Garrett Goon , Kurt Hinterbichler , Austin Joyce , Mark Trodden

In this paper we study perturbatively an extension of the Stelle higher derivative gravity involving an infinite number of derivative terms. We know that the usual quadratic action is renormalizable but suffers of the unitarity problem…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2015-05-28 Leonardo Modesto

The cosmological constant problem represents a profound conflict between quantum field theory and general relativity. Unimodular gravity offers a compelling starting point by de-gravitating the vacuum energy of the Standard Model, but this…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2025-11-18 David E. Kaplan , Surjeet Rajendran

We investigate the problems of ghosts and stability in the framework of asymptotical safe theory of gravity in the Minkowski background. Within one loop corrections, we obtain explicitly the constraints on the coupling parameters. Applying…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2010-12-06 Changjun Gao , Anzhong Wang

This short note is devoted to the canonical analysis of the non-local theories of gravity. We find their Hamiltonian and determine the algebra of constraints. We perform this analysis for non-local theories of gravity formulated both in…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2015-05-28 J. Kluson

We revisit the problem of the helicity-0 ghost mode of massive graviton in the de Sitter background. In general, the presence of a ghost particle, which has negative energy, drives the vacuum to be unstable through pair production of ghost…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2011-04-28 Keisuke Izumi , Takahiro Tanaka

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…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 Antonio De Felice , Mark Hindmarsh , Mark Trodden

We disprove the widespread belief that higher order curvature theories of gravity in the metric-affine formalism are generally ghost-free. This is clarified by considering a sub-class of theories constructed only with the Ricci tensor and…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2019-08-21 Jose Beltrán Jiménez , Adria Delhom

We present a new point of view on the quantization of the gravitational field, namely we use exclusively the quantum framework of the second quantization. More explicitly, we take as one-particle Hilbert space, $H_{graviton}$ the unitary…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2007-05-23 Dan Radu Grigore

This is a first study of the cosmology of classical fractional gravity, a nonlocal proposal endowed with self-adjoint fractional d'Alembertian operators which serves as the basis for an ultraviolet-complete theory of quantum gravity. We…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2026-05-01 Iván Salvador-García , Gianluca Calcagni

Bimetric gravity theories allow for many different types of cosmological solutions, but not all of them are theoretically allowed. In this work we discuss the conditions to satisfy the Higuchi bound and to avoid gradient instabilities in…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-22 Frank Könnig

We perform a canonical quantization of Weyl's conformal gravity by means of the covariant operator formalism and investigate the unitarity of the resulting quantum theory. After reducing the originally fourth order theory to second order in…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2022-09-14 Jisuke Kubo , Jeffrey Kuntz

Quantum theory, general relativity, the standard model of particle physics, and the $\Lambda$CDM model of cosmology have all been spectacularly successful within their respective regimes of applicability, but many central problems remain…

General Physics · Physics 2026-05-26 Roland E. Allen

Higher derivative quantum corrections are essential components of scalar tensor effective field theories (EFTs), yet they typically reintroduce the Ostrogradsky ghost instability that the classical theory was designed to evade. This paper…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2026-04-21 Ginevra Braga , Raul Jimenez , Sabino Matarrese

A dynamical aspect of quantum gravity on de Sitter spacetime is investigated by holography or the dS/CFT correspondence. We show that de Sitter spacetime emerges from a free Sp(N) vector model by complexifying the ghost fields and flowing…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2020-04-10 Shuichi Yokoyama

We introduce Hausdorff-Colombeau measure in respect with negative fractal dimensions. Axiomatic quantum field theory in spacetime with negative fractal dimensions is proposed.Spacetime is modelled as a multifractal subset of $R^{4}$ with…

General Mathematics · Mathematics 2019-07-03 J. Foukzon , E. R. Menkova , A. A. Potapov , S. A. Podosenov

A consistent physical theory of quantum mechanics can be built on a complex Hamiltonian that is not Hermitian but instead satisfies the physical condition of space-time reflection symmetry (PT symmetry). Thus, there are infinitely many new…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2009-11-10 Carl M. Bender , Dorje C. Brody , Hugh F. Jones

Many parity violating gravity models suffer from the ghost instability problem. In this paper, we consider a symmetric teleparallel gravity model that extends the general relativity equivalent model by several parity violating interactions…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2022-08-23 Mingzhe Li , Yeheng Tong , Dehao Zhao

We discuss a special class of quantum gravity phenomena that occur on the scale of the Universe as a whole at any stage of its evolution. These phenomena are a direct consequence of the zero rest mass of gravitons, conformal non-invariance…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2013-09-03 Leonid Marochnik , Daniel Usikov , Grigory Vereshkov