Related papers: Non-perturbative unitarity and fictitious ghosts i…
We study the quantization of systems with local particle-ghost symmetries. The systems contain ordinary particles including gauge bosons and their counterparts obeying different statistics. The particle-ghost symmetry is a kind of fermionic…
We analyze the perturbative implications of the most general high derivative approach to quantum gravity based on a diffeomorphism invariant local action. In particular, we consider the super-renormalizable case with a large number of…
We compute the one-loop quantum corrections to the potential of ghost-free massive gravity. We show how the mass of external matter fields contribute to the running of the cosmological constant, but do not change the ghost-free structure of…
In quantum mechanics and quantum field theory perturbation theory generically requires the inclusion of extra contributions non-perturbative in the coupling, such as instantons, to reproduce exact results. We show how full non-perturbative…
Fourth order derivative gravity in 3+1-dimensions is perturbatively renormalizable and is shown to describe a unitary theory of gravitons in a limited coupling parameter space. The running gravitational constant which includes graviton…
We hereby present a class of multidimensional higher derivative theories of gravity that realizes an ultraviolet completion of Einstein general relativity. This class is marked by a "non-polynomal" entire function (form factor), which…
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…
Cosmological observations allow the possibility that dark energy is caused by phantom fields. These fields typically lead to the occurrence of singularities in the late Universe. We review here the status of phantom singularities and their…
We reconsider perturbative unitarity in quantum field theory and upgrade several arguments and results. The minimum assumptions that lead to the largest time equation, the cutting equations and the unitarity equation are identified. Using…
The effective action in renormalizable quantum theory of gravity provides entropy because the total Hamiltonian vanishes. Since it is a renormalization group invariant that is constant in the process of cosmic evolution, we can show…
Tachyon condensation in quantum field theory (QFT) plays a central role in models of fundamental interactions and cosmology. Inspired by tower truncation in string field theory, ultraviolet completions were proposed with infinite-derivative…
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…
A non-singular bouncing cosmology is generically obtained in loop quantum cosmology due to non-perturbative quantum gravity effects. A similar picture can be achieved in standard general relativity in the presence of a scalar field with a…
Albert Einstein's General Relativity (GR) from 1916 has become the widely accepted theory of gravity and been tested observationally to a very high precision at different scales of energy and distance. At the same time, there still remain…
Practically measurable quantities resulting from quantum field theory are not described by hermitian operators, contradicting one of the cornerstone axioms of orthodox quantum theory. This could be a sign that some of the axioms of orthodox…
We study cosmological perturbations in mimetic matter scenario with a general higher derivative function. We calculate the quadratic action and show that both the kinetic term and the gradient term have the wrong sings. We perform the…
In this paper we consider the degrees of freedom beyond the graviton present in the effective field theory for quantum gravity. We point out that the position of the poles due to $R^2$ and $R_{\mu\nu}R^{\mu\nu}$ cannot be affected by…
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,…
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…
5D superconformal theories involve vacuum valleys characterized in the simplest case by the vacuum expectation value of a real scalar field. If it is nonzero, conformal invariance is spontaneously broken and the theory is not…