Related papers: Anti-Instability of Complex Ghost
An oscillating, compact Friedmann universe with a massive conformally coupled scalar field is studied in the framework of quantum cosmology. The scalar field is treated as a perturbation and we look for solutions of the Wheeler-DeWitt…
A form of infinite derivative gravity is free from ghost-like instabilities with improved small scale behavior. In this theory, we calculate the tree-level scattering amplitude and the corresponding weak field potential energy between two…
We outline a novel linear instability that may arise in the dead-zones of protostellar disks, and possibly the fluid interiors of planets and protoplanets. In essence it is an axisymmetric buoyancy instability, but one that would not be…
Wigner crystals are extremely fragile, which is shown to result from very strong geometric frustration germane to long-range Coulomb interactions. Physically, this is manifested by a very small characteristic energy scale for shear density…
Near-extreme Reissner-Nordstrom-anti-de Sitter black holes are unstable against the condensation of an uncharged scalar field with mass close to the Breitenlohner-Freedman bound. It is shown that a similar instability afflicts near-extreme…
Any attempt to regularize a negative tension brane through a bulk scalar requires that this field is a ghost. One can try to improve in this aspect in a number of ways. For instance, it has been suggested to employ a field whose kinetic…
Under the same spirit of the Galileon-Horndeski theories and their more modern extensions, the generalized SU(2) Proca theory was built by demanding that its action may be free of the Ostrogradski's instability. Nevertheless, the theory…
Heisenberg-like spins lying on the pseudosphere (a 2-dimensional infinite space with constant negative curvature) cannot give rise to stable soliton solutions. Only fractional solutions can be stabilized on this surface provided that at…
We identify a possible mechanism of the plasmon instabilities in periodically gated two-dimensional electron systems with a modulated electron density (plasmonic crystals) under direct current. The instability occurs due to the amplified…
In quadratic gravity, with a positive Weyl squared coefficient, the extra spin-2 sector is shown to correspond to a dual inverted harmonic oscillator, instead of a ghost. Using the Wightman spectrum condition, we prove that the associated…
In the context of quantum field theory (QFT), unstable particles are associated with complex-valued poles of two-body scattering matrices in the unphysical sheet of rapidity space. The Breit-Wigner formula relates this pole to the mass and…
One of the remarkable differences between renormalizable quantum gravity with four-derivative action and its superrenormalizable polynomial generalizations is that the latter admit a more sophisticated particle mass spectrum. Already in the…
In a recently proposed model of ``ghost condensation'', spatially homogeneous states may mix, via tunneling, with inhomogeneous states which are somewhat similar to bubbles in the theory of false vacuum decay, the corresponding bubble…
Generic massive gravity models in the unitary gauge correspond to a self-gravitating medium with six degrees of freedom. It is widely believed that massive gravity models with six degrees of freedom have an unavoidable ghost-like…
We elaborate on a criterion for the emergence of instability in the fundamental mode recently observed by Cheung {\it et al.}, as a universal phenomenon in the context of black hole perturbations. Such instability is characterized by an…
We use the Fokker-Planck equation and model the dispersive dynamics of solid particles in annular protoplanetary disks whose gas component is more massive than the particle phase. We model particle--gas interactions as hard sphere…
Stochastic motion of particles in a highly unstable potential generates a number of diverging trajectories leading to undefined statistical moments of the particle position. This makes experiments challenging and breaks down a standard…
In the recently proposed non-local theory of quantum gravity one can avoid massive tensor ghosts at the tree level by a special choice of the non-local form factor between the two Ricci tensors. We show that at the quantum level this theory…
Recent LHC results concerning the mass of the Higgs boson indicate that the vacuum in our Universe may be unstable. We analyze properties of unstable vacuum states from the point of view of the quantum theory of unstable states. From the…
A pictorial explanation for shear-Hall instability is suggested and shows that the shear flow is not necessary for the instability because its role can be played by the Hall effect of an inhomogeneous background magnetic field. Linear…