相关论文: Tensor instabilities at the end of the LCDM univer…

We explore perturbations about a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker background in Chern-Simons gravity. At large momenta one of the two circularly polarized tensor modes becomes ghostlike. We argue that nevertheless the theory does not exhibit…

We study the creation and evolution of cosmological perturbations in renormalizable quadratic gravity with a Weyl term. We adopt a prescription that implies the stability of the vacuum at the price of introducing a massive spin-two ghost…

We argue that Lee-Wick's complex ghost appearing in any higher derivative theory is stable and its asymptotic field exists. It may be more appropriate to call it ``anti-unstable" in the sense that, the more the ghost `decays' into lighter…

We consider cosmological models with a dynamical dark energy field, and study the presence of three types of commonly found instabilities, namely ghost (when fields have negative kinetic energy), gradient (negative momentum squared) and…

In the framework of asymptotic safety, we study quantum quadratic gravity in the presence of the Higgs field considered as non-separable from the vacuum. The theory flows to a high energy fixed point where the Higgs field is strongly…

We review some of the recent results which can be useful for better understanding of the problem of stability of vacuum and in general classical solutions in higher derivative quantum gravity. The fourth derivative terms in the purely…

We consider some flat space theories for spin 2 gravitons, with less invariance than full diffeomorphisms. For the massless case, classical stability and absence of ghosts require invariance under transverse diffeomorphisms (TDiff). Generic…

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…

Many theories of modified gravity with higher order derivatives are usually ignored because of serious problems that appear due to an additional ghost degree of freedom. Most dangerously, it causes an immediate decay of the vacuum. However,…

In the context of Lorentz-invariant massive gravity we show that classical solutions around heavy sources are plagued by ghost instabilities. The ghost shows up in the effective field theory at huge distances from the source, much bigger…

The possibility of flat metric solutions in the presence of arbitrary, in particular, Planck mass sized cosmological constants is investigated within multigravity theory, the ghost-free theory of $(N+1)$ rank-2 tensor fields comprising one…

We show that the five-dimensional Maxwell theory with the Chern-Simons term is tachyonic in the presence of a constant electric field. When coupled to gravity, a sufficiently large Chern-Simons coupling causes instability of the…

The tachyonic instability is associated with the unboundedness of the Hamiltonian from below and results in an unstable low-$k$ regime. In the cosmological exploration of modified gravity, it is seldom taken into account, with more focus…

In the recently proposed non-local theory of quantum gravity one can avoid massive tensor ghosts at the tree level by a special choice of the non-local form factor between the two Ricci tensors. We show that at the quantum level this theory…

Perturbatively renormalizable higher-derivative gravity in four space-time dimensions with arbitrary signs of couplings has been considered. Systematic analysis of the action with arbitrary signs of couplings in lorentzian flat space-time…

It is well known that the Klein Gordon (KG) equation $\Box \Phi + m^2\Phi=0$ has tachyonic unstable modes on large scales ($k^2<\vert m \vert^2$) for $m^2<m_{cr}^2=0$ in a flat Minkowski spacetime with maximum growth rate $\Omega_{F}(m)=…

In the context of perturbative quantum field theory, the addition of quadratic-curvature invariants to the Einstein-Hilbert action makes it possible to achieve strict renormalizability in four dimensions. The additional terms $R^2$ and…

We show that the ghost degrees of freedom of Einstein gravity with a Weyl term can be eliminated by a simple mechanism that invokes local Lorentz symmetry breaking. We demonstrate how the mechanism works in a cosmological setting. The…

Interacting theories with higher derivatives involve ghosts. They correspond to instabilities that display themselves at the classical level. We notice that comparatively "benign" mechanical higher-derivative systems exist where the…

We explore the possibility of parity-violating, nonminimally coupled 2-form field theories that retain the same dynamical degrees of freedom as a massive 2-form and thus are ghost-free. Starting from the most general kinetic terms and…