General Quadratic Action Research Articles

Electrodynamics with violations of Lorentz and U(1) gauge symmetries and their Hamiltonian structures* *Supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2020YFC2201503, the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LR21A050001, LY20A050002) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (12275238, 11675143). B.-F. Li is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NNSFC) (12005186)

This study aims to investigate Lorentz/U(1) gauge symmetry-breaking electrodynamics in the framework of the standard-model extension and analyze the Hamiltonian structure for the theory with a specific dimension of Lorentz breaking operators. For this purpose, we consider a general quadratic action of the modified electrodynamics with Lorentz/gauge-breaking operators and calculate the number of independent components of the operators at different dimensions in gauge invariance and breaking. With this general action, we then analyze how Lorentz/gauge symmetry-breaking can change the Hamiltonian structure of the theories by considering Lorentz/gauge-breaking operators with dimension as examples. We show that the Lorentz-breaking operators with gauge invariance do not change the classes of the theory constrains and the number of physical degrees of freedom of the standard Maxwell electrodynamics. When U(1) gauge symmetry-breaking operators are present, the theories generally lack a first-class constraint and have one additional physical degree of freedom compared to the standard Maxwell electrodynamics.

Spontaneous conformal symmetry breaking and quantum quadratic gravity

We investigate several quantum phenomena related to quadratic gravity after rewriting the general fourth-order action in a more convenient form that is second order in derivatives and produces only first-class constraints in phase space. We find that a Higgs mechanism may occur in the conformally invariant subset of the general quadratic action if the theory is conformally coupled to a scalar field that acquires a nonzero vacuum expectation value and spontaneously breaks the conformal symmetry. Then, in the broken phase, the originally massless spin-2 ghost may absorb both the scalar and vector fields to become massive. We also perform a Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin quantization of second-order quadratic gravity in the covariant operator formalism and discuss conditions under which unitarity of the full interacting quantum theory may be established.

New massless and massive infinite derivative gravity in three dimensions

In this paper we will consider the most general quadratic curvature action with infinitely many covariant derivatives of massless gravity in three spacetime dimensions. The action is parity invariant and torsion-free and contains the same off-shell degrees of freedom as the Einstein-Hilbert action in general relativity. In the ultraviolet, with an appropriate choice of the propagator given by the exponential of an entire function, the point-like curvature singularity can be smoothened to a Gaussian distribution, while in the infrared the theory reduces to general relativity. We will also show how to embed new massive gravity in ghost-free infinite derivative gravity in Minkowski background as one of the infrared limits. Finally, we will provide the tree-level unitarity conditions for infinite derivative gravity in presence of a cosmological constant in deSitter and Anti-deSitter spacetimes in three dimensions by perturbing the geometries.

Propagation of gravitational waves in a cosmological background

We investigate the propagation of the gravitational waves in a cosmological background. Based on the framework of spatially covariant gravity, we derive the general quadratic action for the gravitational waves. The spatial derivatives of the extrinsic curvature and the parity-violating terms are systematically introduced. Special attention is paid to the propagation speed of the gravitational waves. We find that it is possible to make the two polarization modes propagate in the same speed, which may differ from that of the light, in the presence of parity-violating terms in the action. In particular, we identify a large class of spatially covariant gravity theories with parity violation, in which both the polarization modes propagate in the speed of light. Our results imply that there are more possibilities in the framework of spatially covariant gravity in light of the propagation speed of the gravitational waves.

Black hole formation from a general quadratic action for inflationary primordial fluctuations

The most up to date femto- and micro-lensing constraints indicate that primordial black holes of ∼ 10−16 M⊙ and ∼ 10−12 M⊙, respectively, may constitute a large fraction of the dark matter. We describe analytically and numerically the dynamics by which inflationary fluctuations featuring a time-varying propagation speed or an effective Planck mass can lead to abundant primordial black hole production. As an example, we provide an ad hoc DBI-like model. A very large primordial spectrum originating from a small speed of sound typically leads to strong coupling within the vanilla effective theory of inflationary perturbations. However, we point out that ghost inflation may be able to circumvent this problem. We consider as well black hole formation in solid inflation, for which, in addition to an analogous difficulty, we stress the importance of the reheating process. In addition, we review the basic formalism for the collapse of large radiation density fluctuations, emphasizing the relevance of an adequate choice of gauge invariant variables.

Nonsingular and ghost-free infinite derivative gravity with torsion

We present the most general quadratic curvature action with torsion including infinite covariant derivatives and study its implications around the Minkowski background via the Palatini approach. Provided the torsion is solely given by the background axial field, the metric and torsion are shown to decouple, and both of them can be made ghost and singularity free for a fermionic source.

Scale Transformations in Metric-Affine Geometry

This article presents an exhaustive classification of metric-affine theories according to their scale symmetries. First it is clarified that there are three relevant definitions of a scale transformation. These correspond to a projective transformation of the connection, a rescaling of the orthonormal frame, and a combination of the two. The most general second order quadratic metric-affine action, including the parity-violating terms, is constructed in each of the three cases. The results can be straightforwardly generalised by including higher derivatives, and implemented in the general metric-affine, teleparallel, and symmetric teleparallel geometries.

General theory of cosmological perturbations in open and closed universes from the Horndeski action

Our Universe is nearly spatially flat, but this does not mean that it is exactly spatially flat. In this paper we derive general quadratic actions for cosmological perturbations in nonflat models from the Horndeski theory. This allows us to study how the spatial curvature influences the behavior of cosmological perturbations in the early Universe described by some general scalar-tensor theory. We show that a tiny spatial curvature at the onset of inflation is unlikely to yield large [or $\mathcal{O}(1)$] effects on the primordial spectra even if one modifies gravity. We also argue that nonsingular cosmological solutions in the Horndeski theory are unstable in spatially open cases as well as in flat cases.

Riemann–Finsler geometry and Lorentz-violating scalar fields

The correspondence between Riemann–Finsler geometries and effective field theories with spin-independent Lorentz violation is explored. We obtain the general quadratic action for effective scalar field theories in any spacetime dimension with Lorentz-violating operators of arbitrary mass dimension. Classical relativistic point-particle lagrangians are derived that reproduce the momentum-velocity and dispersion relations of quantum wave packets. The correspondence to Finsler structures is established, and some properties of the resulting Riemann–Finsler spaces are investigated. The results provide support for open conjectures about Riemann–Finsler geometries associated with Lorentz-violating field theories.

Covariant approach to parametrized cosmological perturbations

We present a covariant formulation for constructing general quadratic actions for cosmological perturbations, invariant under a given set of gauge symmetries for a given field content. This approach allows us to analyze scalar, vector, and tensor perturbations at the same time in a straightforward manner. We apply the procedure to diffeomorphism invariant single-tensor, scalar-tensor, and vector-tensor theories and show explicitly the full covariant form of the quadratic actions in such cases, in addition to the actions determining the evolution of vector and tensor perturbations. We also discuss the role of the symmetry of the background in identifying the set of cosmologically relevant free parameters describing these classes of theories, including calculating the relevant free parameters for an axisymmetric Bianchi-I vacuum universe.

Effective description of higher-order scalar-tensor theories

Most existing theories of dark energy and/or modified gravity, involving a scalar degree of freedom, can be conveniently described within the framework of the Effective Theory of Dark Energy, based on the unitary gauge where the scalar field is uniform. We extend this effective approach by allowing the Lagrangian in unitary gauge to depend on the time derivative of the lapse function. Although this dependence generically signals the presence of an extra scalar degree of freedom, theories that contain only one propagating scalar degree of freedom, in addition to the usual tensor modes, can be constructed by requiring the initial Lagrangian to be degenerate. Starting from a general quadratic action, we derive the dispersion relations for the linear perturbations around Minkowski and a cosmological background. Our analysis directly applies to the recently introduced Degenerate Higher-Order Scalar-Tensor (DHOST) theories. For these theories, we find that one cannot recover a Poisson-like equation in the static linear regime except for the subclass that includes the Horndeski and so-called “beyond Horndeski” theories. We also discuss Lorentz-breaking models inspired by Horava gravity.

A general theory of linear cosmological perturbations: scalar-tensor and vector-tensor theories

We present a method for parametrizing linear cosmological perturbations of theories of gravity, around homogeneous and isotropic backgrounds. The method is sufficiently general and systematic that it can be applied to theories with any degrees of freedom (DoFs) and arbitrary gauge symmetries. In this paper, we focus on scalar-tensor and vector-tensor theories, invariant under linear coordinate transformations. In the case of scalar-tensor theories, we use our framework to recover the simple parametrizations of linearized Horndeski and ``Beyond Horndeski'' theories, and also find higher-derivative corrections. In the case of vector-tensor theories, we first construct the most general quadratic action for perturbations that leads to second-order equations of motion, which propagates two scalar DoFs. Then we specialize to the case in which the vector field is time-like (à la Einstein-Aether gravity), where the theory only propagates one scalar DoF. As a result, we identify the complete forms of the quadratic actions for perturbations, and the number of free parameters that need to be defined, to cosmologically characterize these two broad classes of theories.

Spacetimes with vector distortion: Inflation from generalised Weyl geometry

Spacetime with general linear vector distortion is introduced. Thus, the torsion and the nonmetricity of the affine connection are assumed to be proportional to a vector field (and not its derivatives). The resulting two-parameter family of non-Riemannian geometries generalises the conformal Weyl geometry and some other interesting special cases. Taking into account the leading order quadratic curvature correction to the Einstein-Hilbert action results uniquely in the one-parameter extension of the Starobinsky inflation known as the alpha-attractor. The most general quadratic curvature action introduces, in addition to the canonical vector kinetic term, novel ghost-free vector-tensor interactions.

Primordial statistical anisotropies: the effective field theory approach

In this work we present the effective field theory of primordial statistical anisotropies generated during anisotropic inflation involving a background U(1) gauge field. Besides the usual Goldstone boson associated with the breaking of time diffeomorphism we have two additional Goldstone bosons associated with the breaking of spatial diffeomorphisms. We further identify these two new Goldstone bosons with the expected two transverse degrees of the U(1) gauge field fluctuations. Upon defining the appropriate unitary gauge, we present the most general quadratic action which respects the remnant symmetry in the unitary gauge. The interactions between various Goldstone bosons leads to statistical anisotropy in curvature perturbation power spectrum. Calculating the general results for power spectrum anisotropy, we recover the previously known results in specific models of anisotropic inflation. In addition, we present novel results for statistical anisotropy in models with non-trivial sound speed for inflaton fluctuations. Also we identify the interaction which leads to birefringence-like effects in anisotropic power spectrum in which the speed of gauge field fluctuations depends on the direction of the mode propagation and the two polarization of gauge field fluctuations contribute differently in statistical anisotropy. As another interesting application, our EFT approach naturally captures interactions generating parity violating statistical anisotropies.

Thermodynamics of topological black holes inR2gravity

We study topological black hole solutions of the simplest quadratic gravity action and we find that two classes are allowed. The first is asymptotically flat and mimics the Reissner-Nordstr\"om solution, while the second is asymptotically de Sitter or anti-de Sitter. In both classes, the geometry of the horizon can be spherical, toroidal or hyperbolic. We focus in particular on the thermodynamical properties of the asymptotically anti-de Sitter solutions and we compute the entropy and the internal energy with Euclidean methods. We find that the entropy is positive-definite for all horizon geometries and this allows to formulate a consistent generalized first law of black hole thermodynamics, which keeps in account the presence of two arbitrary parameters in the solution. The two-dimensional thermodynamical state space is fully characterized by the underlying scale invariance of the action and it has the structure of a projective space. We find a kind of duality between black holes and other objects with the same entropy in the state space. We briefly discuss the extension of our results to more general quadratic actions.

Gravitational wave signal from massive gravity

We discuss the detectability of gravitational waves with a time-dependent mass contribution, by means of the stochastic gravitational wave observations. Such a mass term typically arises in the cosmological solutions of massive gravity theories. We conduct the analysis based on a general quadratic action, and thus the results apply universally to any massive gravity theories in which the modification of general relativity appears primarily in the tensor modes. The primary manifestation of the modification in the gravitational wave spectrum is a sharp peak. The position and height of the peak carry information on the present value of the mass term, as well as the duration of the inflationary stage. We also discuss the detectability of such a gravitational wave signal using the future-planned gravitational wave observatories.

Primordial fluctuations from inflation with a triad of background gauge fields

We study the linear perturbation of the recently proposed model of inflation where a uniform gauge-kinetic coupling of the inflaton to multiple vector fields breaks the cosmic no-hair conjecture while maintaining the isotropy. We derive the general quadratic action for the perturbation and calculate the power spectra of scalar and tensor modes at the end of inflation by in-in formalism. It is shown that the model predicts slightly red spectra and the tensor-to-scalar ratio tends to be suppressed. The comparison with the data from WMAP 7-year does not impose strong constraints on the parameters and both weak- and strong- gauge-field regimes are consistent with the current observations.

G-INFLATION: INFLATION WITH THE MOST GENERAL SECOND-ORDER FIELD EQUATIONS

In this talk, we have discussed generalized Galileons as a framework to develop the most general single-field inflation models ever, (Generalized) G-inflation, containing previous examples such as k-inflation, extended inflation, and new Higgs inflation as special cases. We have also investigated the background and perturbation evolution in this model, calculating the most general quadratic actions for tensor and scalar cosmological perturbations to give the stability criteria and the power spectra of primordial fluctuations.

Generalized G-Inflation: --Inflation with the Most General Second-Order Field Equations--

We study generalized Galileons as a framework to develop the most general single-field inflation models ever, Generalized G-inflation, containing yet further generalization of G-inflation, as well as previous examples such as k-inflation, extended inflation, and new Higgs inflation as special cases. We investigate the background and perturbation evolution in this model, calculating the most general quadratic actions for tensor and scalar cosmological perturbations to give the stability criteria and the power spectra of primordial fluctuations. It is pointed out in the Appendix that the Horndeski theory and the generalized Galileons are equivalent. In particular, even the non-minimal coupling to the Gauss-Bonnet term is included in the generalized Galileons in a non-trivial manner.

Improved variational description of the Wick-Cutkosky model with the most general quadratic trial action

We generalize the worldline variational approach to field theory by introducing a trial action which allows for anisotropic terms to be induced by external 4-momenta of Green's functions. By solving the ensuing variational equations numerically we demonstrate that within the (quenched) scalar Wick-Cutkosky model considerable improvement can be achieved over results obtained previously with isotropic actions. In particular, the critical coupling associated with the instability of the model is lowered, in accordance with expectations from Baym's proof of the instability in the unquenched theory. The physical picture associated with a different quantum mechanical motion of the dressed particle along and perpendicular to its classical momentum is discussed. Indeed, we find that for large couplings the dressed particle is strongly distorted in the direction of its four-momentum. In addition, we obtain an exact relation between the renormalized coupling of the theory and the propagator. Along the way we introduce new and efficient methods to evaluate the averages needed in the variational approach and apply them to the calculation of the 2-point function.