Abstract
We study the constraints coming from the local causality requirement in various dimensional dynamical theories of gravity. In topologically massive gravity, with a single parity noninvariant massive degree of freedom, and in new massive gravity, with two massive spin-2 degrees of freedom, causality and unitarity are compatible with each other and both require the Newton’s constant to be negative. In their extensions, such as the Born-Infeld gravity and the minimal massive gravity the situation is similar and quite different from their higher dimensional counterparts, such as quadratic (e.g., Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet) or cubic theories, where causality and unitarity are in conflict. We study the problem both in asymptotically flat and asymptotically anti–de Sitter spaces.
- Received 12 October 2016
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.95.104016
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