Non-trivial time crystal-like ground state for gravitational perturbation in quadratic gravity

Abstract

We consider gravitational perturbation around maximally symmetric background of a theory of gravity involving quadratic curvature correction. This leads to a decoupled model of the standard transverse, traceless graviton mode and an additional scalar degree of freedom. Evolution of the latter is governed by a Lagrangian, which depends on higher derivative terms, inherited from the quadratic curvature correction in the action. It turns out that stability of the gravitational theory allows the scalar sector to choose between possible lowest energy states (or, ground states), that can sustain periodic form of inhomogeneity, either in space or in time. The latter, with a restricted form of invariance in time translation, is possibly a variant form of the time crystal. Existence of this novel ground state, depicting a time crystal, is solely related to the presence of higher curvature terms in the action. In particular, this non-trivial condensate-like ground state describe the spacetime fabric itself by introducing fundamental scales in the theory. Possible implications are also discussed.