Related papers: Intrinsically-defined higher-derivative Carrollian…
We investigate a class of first-order scalar field theories minimally coupled to a Carrollian connection that are defined intrinsically on the Carrollian plane, i.e., the theories are not defined via limits of Lorentzian theories. The…
Higher order derivative theories, generally suffer from instabilities, known as Ostrogradsky instabilities. This issue can be resolved by removing any existing degeneracy present in such theories. We consider a model involving at most…
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,…
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 introduce a new class of scalar-tensor theories that extend Horndeski, or "generalized galileon", models. Despite possessing equations of motion of higher order in derivatives, we show that the true propagating degrees of freedom obey…
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…
Ostrogradsky's construction of a Hamiltonian formalism for nondegenerate higher derivative Lagrangians is reviewed. The resulting instability imposes by far the most powerful restriction on fundamental, interacting, continuum Lagrangian…
The Ostrogradsky instability of higher derivative Lagrangians is derived from first principles using Control theory and Lyapunov Stability Analysis. This result is then used to argue that Born-Infeld Lagrangians are viable modifications of…
The problems that are connected with Lagrangians which depend on higher order derivatives (namely additional degrees of freedom, unbound energy from below, etc.) are absent if effective Lagrangians are considered because the equations of…
In theories with higher time derivatives, the Hamiltonian analysis of Ostrogradsky predicts an instability. However, this Hamiltonian treatment does not correspond the way that these theories are treated in quantum field theory, and the…
We review the fate of the Ostrogradsky ghost in higher-order theories. We start by recalling the original Ostrogradsky theorem and illustrate, in the context of classical mechanics, how higher-derivatives Lagrangians lead to unbounded…
Ostrogradsky instability generally appears in nondegenerate higher-order derivative theories and this issue can be resolved by removing any existing degeneracy present in such theories. We consider an action involving terms that are at most…
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 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…
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 prove that the linear instability in a non-degenerate higher derivative theory, the Ostrogradski instability, can only be removed by the addition of constraints if the original theory's phase space is reduced.
We consider the O(3) or CP(1) nonlinear sigma model as an effective field theory in a derivative expansion, with the most general Lagrangian that obeys O(3), parity and Lorentz symmetry. We work out the complete list of possible operators…
Scalar field theories with derivative interactions are known to possess solitonic excitations, but such solitons are generally unsatisfactory because the effective theory fails precisely where nonlinearities responsible for the solitons are…
We prove that higher-derivative and genuinely nonlocal Lagrangian systems can be Lyapunov-stable even when their Hamiltonians lack a lower bound. Explicit free and coupled Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillators, together with a genuine nonlocal model,…
The theory of freely-propagating massless higher spins is usually formulated via gauge fields and parameters subject to trace constraints. We summarize a proposal allowing to forego them by introducing only a pair of additional fields in…