Massive Gravity Coupled to Galileons is Ghost-Free

Melinda Andrews, Garrett Goon, Kurt Hinterbichler, James Stokes, and Mark Trodden

Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 061107 – Published 9 August 2013

Abstract

It is possible to couple Dirac-Born-Infeld scalars possessing generalized Galilean internal shift symmetries (Galileons) to nonlinear massive gravity in four dimensions, in such a manner that the interactions maintain the Galilean symmetry. Such a construction is of interest, because it is not possible to couple such fields to massless general relativity in the same way. We show that this theory has the primary constraint necessary to eliminate the Boulware-Deser ghost, thus preserving the attractive properties of both the Galileons and ghost-free massive gravity.

Received 22 March 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.061107

Authors & Affiliations

Melinda Andrews^1,*, Garrett Goon^1,†, Kurt Hinterbichler^2,‡, James Stokes^1,§, and Mark Trodden^1,∥

¹Center for Particle Cosmology, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA
²Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, 31 Caroline Street North, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 2Y5, Canada

^*mgildner@sas.upenn.edu
^†ggoon@sas.upenn.edu
^‡khinterbichler@perimeterinstitute.ca
^§stokesj@sas.upenn.edu
^∥trodden@physics.upenn.edu

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Vol. 111, Iss. 6 — 9 August 2013

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