Related papers: Benign vs malicious ghosts in higher-derivative th…
The status of classical stability in higher-derivative systems is still subject to discussions. In this note, we argue that, contrary to general belief, many higher-derivative systems are classically stable. The main tool to see this…
We consider the phenomenon of classicalization in nonlinear sigma models with both positive and negative target space curvature and with any number of derivatives. We find that the theories with only two derivatives exhibit a weak form of…
We consider Modified Gravity models involving inverse powers of fourth-order curvature invariants. Using these models' equivalence to the theory of a scalar field coupled to a linear combination of the invariants, we investigate the…
We disprove the widespread belief that higher order curvature theories of gravity in the metric-affine formalism are generally ghost-free. This is clarified by considering a sub-class of theories constructed only with the Ricci tensor and…
Dipolar Dark Matter (DDM) is an alternative model motivated by the challenges faced by the standard cold dark matter model to describe the right phenomenology at galactic scales. A promising realisation of DDM was recently proposed in the…
We reconsider the gauge hierarchy problem from the viewpoint of effective field theories and a high-energy physics, motivated by the alternative scenario that the standard model holds up to a high-energy scale such as the Planck scale. The…
This paper presents a new higher derivative gravity which in spontaneous breaking electroweak symmetry state does not have ghost in gravity sector. We show that Newton constant of the gravity and dark energy density they depend on the…
Recently modified gravitational theories which mimic the behaviour of dark matter, the so-called "Mimetic Dark Matter", have been proposed. We study the consistency of such theories with respect to the absence of ghost instability and…
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…
In 4D renormalisable theories, integrating out massive states generates in the low energy effective action higher dimensional operators (derivative or otherwise). Using a superfield language it is shown that a 4D N=1 supersymmetric theory…
A class of dynamical dark energy models is constructed through an extended version of fermion fields corresponding to phantom dark ghost spinors, which are spin one half with mass dimension one. We find that if these spinors interact with…
We discuss the presence of ghostly instabilities for metric-affine theories constructed with higher order curvature terms. We mainly focus on theories containing only the Ricci tensor and show the crucial role played by the projective…
The energy in the ghost-free massive gravity theory is calculated via explicitly resolving the initial value constraints for spherically symmetric deformations of flat space. It turns out that the energy is positive in some cases, but in…
Higher derivative terms in the gravitational action are natural from the perspective of quantum gravity, but are perceived as leading to a lack of well-posedness. The Gauss Bonnet term has second-order equations of motion, but does not…
A classification of bosonic on- and off-shell modes on a cosmological quantum space-time solution of the IIB matrix model is given, which leads to a higher-spin gauge theory. In particular, the no-ghost-theorem is established. The physical…
The Pais-Uhlenbeck model is a quantum theory described by a higher-derivative field equation. It has been believed for many years that this model possesses ghost states (quantum states of negative norm) and therefore that this model is a…
In this work we shall address the ghost issue of $F\left( R,\mathcal{G} \right)$ gravity, which is known to be plagued with ghost degrees of freedom. These ghosts occur due to the presence of higher than two derivatives in the field…
We consider general theories of a massive spin-2 particle $h_{\mu\nu}$ on a Minkowski background. A decomposition of $h_{\mu\nu}$ in terms of helicity eigenstates allows us to directly test whether any given theory possesses a consistent…
The cosmological constant problem and the compatibility of gravity with quantum mechanics are the two most pressing problems in all of gravitational theory. While string theory nicely addresses the latter, it has so far failed to provide…
We provide a systematic framework for theories of multiple axions. We discover a novel type of "alignment" that renders even very complex theories analytically tractable. Theories with about 100 axions and random parameters have an…