Unitarity check in gravitational Higgs mechanism

Lasha Berezhiani and Mehrdad Mirbabayi
Phys. Rev. D 83, 067701 – Published 11 March 2011

Abstract

The effective field theory of massive gravity has long been formulated in a generally covariant way [N. Arkani-Hamed, H. Georgi, and M. D. Schwartz, Ann. Phys. (N.Y.) 305, 96 (2003).]. Using this formalism, it has been found recently that there exists a class of massive nonlinear theories that are free of the Boulware-Deser ghosts, at least in the decoupling limit [C. de Rham and G. Gabadadze, Phys. Rev. D 82, 044020 (2010).]. In this work we study other recently proposed models that go under the name of “gravitational Higgs theories” [A. H. Chamseddine and V. Mukhanov, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2010) 011.]. We show that these models, although seemingly different from the effective field theories of massive gravity, are in fact equivalent to them. Furthermore, based on the results obtained in the effective field theory approach, we conclude that the gravitational Higgs theories need the same adjustment of the Lagrangian to avoid the ghosts. We also show the equivalence between the noncovariant mode decomposition used in the Higgs theories, and the covariant Stückelberg parametrization adopted in the effective field theories, thus proving that the presence or absence of the ghost is independent of the parametrization used in either theory.

  • Received 26 October 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.83.067701

© 2011 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Lasha Berezhiani and Mehrdad Mirbabayi

  • Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, Department of Physics, New York University, New York, New York 10003, USA

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Issue

Vol. 83, Iss. 6 — 15 March 2011

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