Related papers: Benign vs malicious ghosts in higher-derivative th…
We remark that Ostrogradsky ghosts in higher-derivative gravity, with a finite number of derivatives, are fictitious as they result from an unjustified truncation performed in a complete theory containing infinitely many curvature…
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…
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…
To overcome the difficulties with the energy indefiniteness in field theories with higher derivatives, it is supposed to use the mechanical analogy, the Timoshenko theory of the transverse flexural vibrations of beams or rods well known in…
We summarize recent progress in understanding the role of higher-derivative terms in the asymptotic safety scenario of gravity. Extending previous computations based on the functional renormalization group approach by including a…
In this paper we study perturbatively an extension of the Stelle higher derivative gravity involving an infinite number of derivative terms. We know that the usual quadratic action is renormalizable but is not unitary because of the…
In this work, we employ renormalization group methods to study the general behavior of field theories possessing anisotropic scaling in the spacetime variables. The Lorentz breaking symmetry that accompanies these models are either soft, if…
Ghosts have been a stumbling block in the development of a UV complete quantum field theory for gravity. We discuss how difficulties associated with ghosts are overcome in the context of 0+1d QFT. Obtaining a probability interpretation is…
We propose a new scenario for early cosmology, where an inflationary de Sitter phase is obtained with a ghost condensate. The transition to radiation dominance is triggered by the ghost itself, without any slow-roll potential. Density…
Higher derivative quantum corrections are essential components of scalar tensor effective field theories (EFTs), yet they typically reintroduce the Ostrogradsky ghost instability that the classical theory was designed to evade. This paper…
We extend the perturbative approach developed in an earlier work to deal with Lagrangians which have arbitrary higher order time derivative terms for both bosons and fermions. This approach enables us to find an effective Lagrangian with…
At the quantum level, the polynomial models of gravity with six and eight derivatives are superrenormalizable, but suffer from higher derivative ghost and/or tachyonic ghost states. On the other hand, these models may have advantages in the…
Close to a saddle-node bifurcation, when two invariant solutions collide and disappear, the behavior of a dynamical system can closely resemble that of a solution which is no longer present at the chosen parameter value. For bifurcating…
We study cosmological applications of extended vector-tensor theories, whose Lagrangians contain up to two derivatives with respect to metric and vector field. We derive background equations under the assumption of homogeneous and isotropic…
We investigate the existence and behavior of oscillons in theories in which higher derivative terms are present in the Lagrangian, such as galileons. Such theories have emerged in a broad range of settings, from higher-dimensional models,…
In recent papers it has been shown that a large class of vectorization mechanisms in gravity, which involve the vector fields becoming apparently tachyonic in some regime, are actually dominated by ghosts and non-perturbative behavior.…
The Ostrogradski ghost problem that appears in higher derivative theories containing constraints has been considered here. Specifically we have considered systems where only the second class constraints appear. For these kind of systems, it…
For a large region of parameter space involving the cosmological constant and mass parameters, we discuss fluctuating spacetime solutions that are effectively Minkowskian on large time and distance scales. Rapid, small amplitude…
We discuss possible instabilities in higher-derivative matter fields theories. These theories has two free parameters $\beta_1$ and $\beta_4$. By using dynamical system approach we explicitly demonstrate that for stability of Minkowski…
We consider a problem whether bound states are made in a scalar theory with a fourth-order derivative term or not. After rewriting the theory to a standard scalar theory with second-order derivative terms, we calculate a correlation…