Related papers: Purely virtual particles versus Lee-Wick ghosts: p…
We review the history of the ghost problem in quantum field theory from the Pauli-Villars regulator theory to currently popular fourth-order derivative quantum gravity theories. While these theories all appear to have unitarity-violating…
We revisit the previously unsolved problems of ensuring Lorentz invariance and non-perturbative unitarity in Lee-Wick theories. We base our discussion on an ultraviolet completion of QED by Lee-Wick ghost fields, which is argued to be…
Quantum field theories (QFTs) including fourth-derivative terms such as the Lee-Wick finite QED and quadratic gravity have a better ultra-violet behavior compared to standard theories with second-derivative ones, but the existence of ghost…
We present a new understanding of the unstable ghost-like resonance which appears in theories such as quadratic gravity and Lee-Wick type theories. Quantum corrections make this resonance unstable, such that it does not appear in the…
We investigate the relationship between nonlocal and local quantum field theories, and search for a viable notion of "local limit" to relate the unitary models. In Euclidean space it is relatively easy to have nonlocal theories with…
We review the formulation of quantum field theories with purely virtual particles, a new type of degrees of freedom that can mediate interactions without ever appear as external on-shell states. This property allows to solve the problem of…
Very recently, the Lee-Wick standard model has been introduced as a non-SUSY extension of the Standard model which solves the Hierarchy problem. In this model, each field kinetic term attains a higher derivative term. Like any Lee-Wick…
We suggest and briefly review a new sort of superrenormalizable models of higher derivative quantum gravity. The higher derivative terms in the action can be introduced in such a way that all the unphysical massive states have complex…
We discuss how to extract information about the cosmological constant from the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, considered as an eigenvalue of a Sturm-Liouville problem. The equation is approximated to one loop with the help of a variational…
We study the main options for a unitary and renormalizable, local quantum field theory of the gravitational interactions. The first model is a Lee-Wick superrenormalizable higher-derivative gravity, formulated as a nonanalytically Wick…
The aim of these notes is to provide a self-contained review of why it is generically a problem when a solution of a theory possesses ghost fields among the perturbation modes. We define what a ghost field is and we show that its presence…
We review some of the recent results which can be useful for better understanding of the problem of stability of vacuum and in general classical solutions in higher derivative quantum gravity. The fourth derivative terms in the purely…
We argue that Lee-Wick's complex ghost appearing in any higher derivative theory is stable and its asymptotic field exists. It may be more appropriate to call it ``anti-unstable" in the sense that, the more the ghost `decays' into lighter…
We investigate the non-Pauli-Fierz(nPF) theory, a linearized massive gravity with a generic graviton mass term, which has been ignored due to a ghost in its spectrum and the resultant loss of unitarity. We first show that it is possible to…
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…
We propose a class of multidimensional higher derivative theories of gravity without extra real degrees of freedom besides the graviton field. The propagator shows up the usual real graviton pole and extra complex conjugates poles that do…
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…
Understanding the role of higher derivatives is probably one of the most relevant questions in quantum gravity theory. Already at the semiclassical level, when gravity is a classical background for quantum matter fields, the action of…
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…
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,…