Related papers: Ghost Constraints on Modified Gravity
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…
The modified gravity, which eliminates the need for dark energy and which seems to be stable, is considered. The terms with positive powers of the curvature support the inflationary epoch while the terms with negative powers of the…
We reconcile seemingly conflicting statements in the literature about the behavior of cosmological solutions in modified theories of gravity where the Einstein-Hilbert Lagrangian for gravity is modified by the addition of a function of the…
We discuss the no-ghost theorem in the massive gravity in a covariant manner. Using the BRST formalism and St\"{u}ckelberg fields, we first clarify how the Boulware-Deser ghost decouples in the massive gravity theory with Fierz-Pauli mass…
We show that there is a fundamental flaw in the application of modified gravity theories in cosmology, taking $f(R)$ gravity as a paradigmatic example. This theory contains a scalar degree of freedom that couples to the matter stress-energy…
It is conventionally taken for granted that the unitary gauge formulation of quantum gauge field theory has the advantage of preservation unitarity because only physical fields are involved but has the disadvantage of losing…
We study the particle content of higher derivative theories of gravity built with contractions of the Riemann tensor and its covariant derivatives. In the absence of the latter, there is a family of theories exhibiting an Einsteinian…
In the first order formalism of gravitational theories, the spacetime connection is considered as an independent variable to vary together with the metric. However, the metric still generates its Levi-Civita connection that turns out to…
We show that the strong self-interaction of the scalar polarization of a massive graviton can be understood in terms of the propagation of an extra ghost-like degree of freedom, thus relating strong coupling to the sixth degree of freedom…
We propose a phenomenological approach to the cosmological constant problem based on generally covariant non-local and acausal modifications of four-dimensional gravity at enormous distances. The effective Newton constant becomes very small…
In the non-relativistic theory of gravity recently proposed by Horava, the Hamiltonian constraint is not satisfied locally at each point in space. The absence of the local Hamiltonian constraint allows the system to have an extra…
Perturbation theory for gravity in dimensions greater than two requires higher derivatives in the free action. Higher derivatives seem to lead to ghosts, states with negative norm. We consider a fourth order scalar field theory and show…
Runaway solutions can be avoided in fourth order gravity by a doubling of the matter operator algebra with a symmetry constraint with respect to the exchange of observable and hidden degrees of freedom together with the change in sign of…
In this paper, we study Einstein gravity extended with Ricci polynomials and derive the constraints on the coupling constants from the considerations of being ghost free, exhibiting an $a$-theorem and maintaining causality. The salient…
We consider a theory of modified gravity possessing d extra spatial dimensions with a maximally symmetric metric and a scale factor, whose (4+d)-dimensional gravitational action contains terms proportional to quadratic curvature scalars.…
We study global scale invariance along with the unimodular gravity in the vacuum. The global scale invariant gravitational action which follows the unimodular general coordinate transformations is considered without invoking any scalar…
We study linearized massive gravity on the de Sitter background. With a small-enough graviton mass this may have had relevance to inflation, or the present-day cosmic acceleration. Higuchi has shown that this theory has a ghost as long as…
We consider an extension of the Ho\v{r}ava-Lifshitz gravity with extra conformal symmetry by introducing a scalar field with higher order curvature terms. Relaxing the exact local Weyl symmetry, we construct an action with three free…
The combination of GR and the Standard Model disagrees with numerous observations on scales from our Solar System up. In the concordance model of cosmology, these contradictions are removed or alleviated by the introduction of three…
We find unitary and local theories of higher curvature gravity in the vielbein formalism, known as the Poincar\'{e} gauge theory by utilizing the equivalence to the ghost-free massive bigravity. We especially focus on three and four…