Non-Trivial Vacua in Higher-Derivative Gravitation

Details Non-Trivial Vacua in Higher-Derivative Gravitation Non-Trivial Vacua in Higher-Derivative Gravitation

1995-09-26

arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9509147v3

Phys.Rev.D53:5597-5608,1996

Physics

High Energy Physics

High Energy Physics - Theory

25 pages, LaTeX2e with AMS-LaTeX 1.2, 7 eps figures

Scientific paper

10.1103/PhysRevD.53.5597

A discussion of an extended class of higher-derivative classical theories of gravity is presented. A procedure is given for exhibiting the new propagating degrees of freedom, at the full non-linear level, by transforming the higher-derivative action to a canonical second-order form. For general fourth-order theories, described by actions which are general functions of the scalar curvature, the Ricci tensor and the full Riemann tensor, it is shown that the higher-derivative theories may have multiple stable vacua. The vacua are shown to be, in general, non-trivial, corresponding to deSitter or anti-deSitter solutions of the original theory. It is also shown that around any vacuum the elementary excitations remain the massless graviton, a massive scalar field and a massive ghost-like spin-two field. The analysis is extended to actions which are arbitrary functions of terms of the form $\nabla^{2k}R$, and it is shown that such theories also have a non-trivial vacuum structure.

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