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We revisit the problem of building the Lagrangian of a large class of metric theories that respect spatial covariance, which propagate at most two degrees of freedom and in particular no scalar mode. The Lagrangians are polynomials built of…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2021-11-17 Yu-Min Hu , Xian Gao

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…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2016-12-23 Jibril Ben Achour , Marco Crisostomi , Kazuya Koyama , David Langlois , Karim Noui , Gianmassimo Tasinato

We present a systematic construction of the six-derivative effective scalar-tensor theories, extending the four-derivative framework previously developed by Steven Weinberg. The on-shell effective field theory comprises five parity-even and…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2025-12-16 Eugeny Babichev , Sukŗti Bansal , Maria Mylova , Antonio Padilla

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…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2016-06-22 Jibril Ben Achour , David Langlois , Karim Noui

We give a relativistically covariant, wave-functional formulation of Bohm's quantum field theory for the scalar field based on a general foliation of space-time by space-like hypersurfaces. The wave functional, which guides the evolution of…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2009-11-10 George Horton , Chris Dewdney

There has been considerable interest in constructing modified gravity theories that propagate only two degrees of freedom (DOFs), corresponding to the tensorial gravitational waves of general relativity. Within the framework of spatially…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2026-04-17 Yang Yu , Yu-Min Hu , Xian Gao

In this paper I shall consider field theories in a space of four-dimensions which have field variables consisting of the components of a metric tensor and scalar field. The field equations of these scalar-tensor field theories will be…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2022-10-11 Gregory W. Horndeski

We investigate a class of spatially covariant vector field theories on a flat background, where the Lagrangians are constructed as polynomials of first-order derivatives of the vector field. Because Lorentz and $\mathrm{U}(1)$ invariances…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2026-03-06 Shu-Yu Li , Xian Gao

This work discusses scalar-tensor theories of gravity, with a focus on the Brans-Dicke subclass, and one that also takes note of the latter's equivalence with $f(R)$ gravitation theories. A 1+3 covariant formalism is used in this case to…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2018-01-08 Joseph Ntahompagaze , Amare Abebe , Manasse R. Mbonye

In cosmological perturbation theory it is convenient to use the scalar, vector, tensor (SVT) basis as defined according to how these components transform under 3-dimensional rotations. In attempting to solve the fluctuation equations that…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2021-04-14 Matthew G. Phelps , Asanka Amarasinghe , Philip D. Mannheim

Scalar fields play an important role in constructing modified gravity theories. In the case of a single scalar field with timelike gradient, the corresponding Lagrangian in the unitary gauge takes the form of spatially covariant gravity…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2024-07-23 Yang Yu , Zheng Chen , Xian Gao

Degenerate Higher Order Scalar Tensor (DHOST) theories are the most general scalar-tensor theories whose Lagrangian depends on the metric tensor and a single scalar field and its derivatives up to second order. They propagate only one…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2024-11-06 Andrei Lazanu

We make a full classification of scalar monomials built of the Riemann curvature tensor up to the quadratic order and of the covariant derivatives of the scalar field up to the third order. From the point of view of the effective field…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2020-03-27 Xian Gao

We address the construction of manifest U-duality invariant generalized diffeomorphisms. The closure of the algebra requires an extension of the tangent space to include a tensor hierarchy indicating the existence of an underlying unifying…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2015-02-23 Gerardo Aldazabal , Mariana Graña , Diego Marqués , José A. Rosabal

We propose a novel class of degenerate higher-order scalar-tensor theories as an extension of mimetic gravity. By performing a noninvertible conformal transformation on "seed" scalar-tensor theories which may be nondegenerate, we can…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2017-11-27 Kazufumi Takahashi , Tsutomu Kobayashi

We construct classical theories for scalar fields in arbitrary Carroll spacetimes that are invariant under Carrollian diffeomorphisms and Weyl transformations. When the local symmetries are gauge fixed these theories become Carrollian…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2021-04-07 Nishant Gupta , Nemani V. Suryanarayana

In this paper we discuss the connection on a space of $N=2$ TCFT's that appears in the context of background (in)dependence. We formulate a family of {\it target space field theories} with a similar connection on it. Each theory is a gauge…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2015-06-26 Michael Bershadsky , Vladimir Sadov

This contribution reviews scalar-tensor theories whose Lagrangian contains second-order derivatives of a scalar field but nevertheless propagate only one scalar mode (in addition to the usual two tensor modes), and are thus not plagued with…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2018-03-05 David Langlois

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,…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2016-03-07 David Langlois , Karim Noui

It is developed the considerations from (S. M. Min\v{c}i\'c, [14, 15]) about curvature tensors and pseudotensors for a non-symmetric affine connection space in this paper. How many kinds of covariant derivatives are enough to be defined for…

Differential Geometry · Mathematics 2019-10-30 Nenad O. Vesić