Pure R2 gravity can gravitate about a flat background

Abstract

Pure R2 gravity (R2 gravity by itself with no Einstein-Hilbert term) has attracted attention because it is different from other quadratic gravity theories. In a curved de Sitter (dS) or anti-de Sitter (AdS) background, it is equivalent to Einstein gravity with an additional massless scalar and with a cosmological constant. In contrast to other higher-derivative theories, it is therefore unitary. The equivalence with Einstein gravity is not valid for a flat background. In fact, it has been shown that linearizations of pure R2 gravity about flat spacetime does not produce a graviton. In other words, it does not gravitate about flat space. Pure R2 gravity is invariant under restricted Weyl transformations where the metric is scaled by a conformal factor that obeys a harmonic condition. In this work we consider an action composed of pure R2 gravity, a massless scalar field φ non-minimally coupled to gravity plus other terms. The entire action is invariant under restricted Weyl transformations. We show that when the scalar field φ acquires a non-zero vacuum expectation value (VEV), flat spacetime now becomes a viable gravitating background solution. The restricted Weyl symmetry becomes broken, not explicitly but spontaneously. In other words, when φ acquires a non-zero VEV, the equivalent Einstein action has now the possibility of having a zero cosmological constant and therefore solutions in a Minkowski background. The action can also have, as before, a non-zero cosmological constant, so that solutions in a dS and AdS background are still possible.