Ghost Instabilities Research Articles

A simple parity violating gravity model without ghost instability

In this paper we consider a parity violating gravity model without higher derivatives, thus ghost free. This model is constructed from the tetrad and its derivatives and coupled to a dynamical scalar field, like axion. It can be reduced from the Nieh-Yan term within the framework of teleparallel gravity. We apply this model to cosmology and investigate its consequences on cosmological perturbation theory. We find that the coupled dynamical scalar field lost its independent dynamics at the linear order and the parity violating term itself behaves like a viscosity. For gravitational waves, this model produces velocity difference between left- and right-handed polarizations, but generates no amplitude discrepancy.

Stability of relativistic stars with scalar hairs

We study the stability of relativistic stars in scalar-tensor theories with a nonminimal coupling of the form $F(\phi)R$, where $F$ depends on a scalar field $\phi$ and $R$ is the Ricci scalar. On a spherically symmetric and static background, we incorporate a perfect fluid minimally coupled to gravity as a form of the Schutz-Sorkin action. The odd-parity perturbation for the multipoles $l \geq 2$ is ghost-free under the condition $F(\phi)>0$, with the speed of gravity equivalent to that of light. For even-parity perturbations with $l \geq 2$, there are three propagating degrees of freedom arising from the perfect-fluid, scalar-field, and gravity sectors. For $l=0, 1$, the dynamical degrees of freedom reduce to two modes. We derive no-ghost conditions and the propagation speeds of these perturbations and apply them to concrete theories of hairy relativistic stars with $F(\phi)>0$. As long as the perfect fluid satisfies a weak energy condition with a positive propagation speed squared $c_m^2$, there are neither ghost nor Laplacian instabilities for theories of spontaneous scalarization and Brans-Dicke (BD) theories with a BD parameter $\omega_{\rm BD}>-3/2$ (including $f(R)$ gravity). In these theories, provided $0<c_m^2 \le 1$, we show that all the propagation speeds of even-parity perturbations are sub-luminal inside the star, while the speeds of gravity outside the star are equivalent to that of light.

Positivity bounds on reconstructed Horndeski models

Positivity bounds provide conditions that a consistent UV-completion exists for a quantum field theory. We examine their application to Horndeski gravity models reconstructed from the effective field theory (EFT) of dark energy. This enables us to assess whether particular phenomenological parameterizations of the EFT functions reconstruct theories that respect or violate the positivity bounds. We find that commonly adopted EFT parametrizations, cast in terms of the dark energy density or power laws of the scale factor, only satisfy the positivity bounds in non-trivial regions of the parameter space. We then examine parameterizations of the inherently stable EFT basis, constructed to avoid gradient and ghost instabilities by default. In stark contrast, in this basis the positivity bounds either only provide constraints in a-priori unrealistic regions of the parameter space or do not provide any constraints on parameter values at all. The application of positivity bounds to common parametrizations of the standard EFT functions can therefore lead to artificial conclusions that the region of viable Horndeski modifications of gravity is highly constrained. Our results provide a strong motivation, in addition to the default avoidance of theoretical instabilities, for instead adopting parametrizations of the inherently stable EFT basis when testing dark energy and modified gravity models with forthcoming cosmological survey data.

Stable, nonsingular bouncing universe with only a scalar mode

In this paper, we study a class of higher derivative, non-local gravity which admits homogeneous and isotropic non-singular, bouncing universes in the absence of matter. At the linearized level, the theory propagates only a scalar degree of freedom, and no vector or tensor modes. The scalar can be made free from perturbative ghost instabilities, and has oscillatory and bounded evolution across the bounce.

Massive gravity with nonminimal coupling

We propose new massive gravity theories with 5 dynamical degrees of freedom. We evade uniqueness theorems regarding the form of the kinetic and potential terms by adopting the "generalized massive gravity" framework, where a global translation invariance is broken. By exploiting the rotation symmetry in the field space, we determine two novel classes of theories. The first one is an extension of generalized massive gravity with a non-minimal coupling. On the other hand, the second theory produces a mass term that is different from de Rham, Gabadadze, Tolley construction and trivially has 5 degrees of freedom. Both theories allows for stable cosmological solutions without infinite strong coupling, which are free of ghost and gradient instabilities.

Spontaneous vectorization in the presence of vector-field coupling to matter

We examine the possibility of spontaneous vectorization in the vector-tensor theories with the vector conformal and disformal couplings to matter. We study the static and spherically symmetric solutions of the relativistic stars with the nontrivial profile of the vector field satisfying the boundary conditions ${A}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$ at the spatial infinity, where ${A}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}$ represents the vector field. First, we study the linear perturbations about the general relativistic (GR) stellar solutions with the vanishing vector field ${A}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}=0$. We show that the pure vector disformal coupling causes the ghost or gradient instability of the GR stars, indicating the breakdown of the hyperbolicity on the GR stellar backgrounds. On the other hand, the pure conformal coupling causes the tachyonic instability of the GR solutions and would lead to the spontaneous growth of the vector field toward the nontrivial solutions as in the manner of spontaneous scalarization in the scalar-tensor theories. We then construct the static and spherically symmetric solutions of the relativistic stars with 0 and 1 nodes of the vector field in the presence of the pure disformal coupling. We find that the properties of the solutions with the nontrivial vector field are similar to those of the generalized Proca theories. As in the mass-radius diagram the branches of the 0 and 1 node solutions are disconnected to that of the GR solutions in the lower density regimes, they may be formed from the selected choice of the initial conditions. We also construct the 0 node solutions in the case of the pure conformal coupling, and show that the branch of these solutions is connected to that of the GR solutions in both the low and high density regions and hence would arise spontaneously via the continuous evolution from the GR solutions. Finally, we briefly discuss the combined effects of the conformal and disformal couplings on the nontrivial solutions.

Dark-energy instabilities induced by gravitational waves

We point out that dark-energy perturbations may become unstable in the presence of a gravitational wave of sufficiently large amplitude. We study this effect for the cubic Horndeski operator (braiding), proportional to αB. The scalar that describes dark-energy fluctuations features ghost and/or gradient instabilities for gravitational-wave amplitudes that are produced by typical binary systems. Taking into account the populations of binary systems, we conclude that the instability is triggered in the whole Universe for |αB |≳ 10−2, i.e. when the modification of gravity is sizeable. The instability is triggered by massive black-hole binaries down to frequencies corresponding to 1010 km: the instability is thus robust, unless new physics enters on even longer wavelengths. The fate of the instability and the subsequent time-evolution of the system depend on the UV completion, so that the theory may end up in a state very different from the original one. The same kind of instability is present in beyond-Horndeski theories for |αH| ≳ 10−20. In conclusion, the only dark-energy theories with sizeable cosmological effects that avoid these problems are k-essence models, with a possible conformal coupling with matter.

Stable cosmology in generalized massive gravity

We present a thorough analysis of the cosmological perturbations in Generalised Massive Gravity. This is an extension of de Rham-Gabadadze-Tolley theory where the translation invariance in the St\"uckelberg field space is broken. This allows the mass parameters to be promoted to functions of the St\"uckelberg fields. We consider an exact cosmological background in this theory and study the stability of perturbations. We derive conditions to avoid ghost, gradient and tachyonic instability. The cosmology is an extension of the self-accelerating branch of the constant mass parameter theory, but now all five massive graviton polarisations propagate. For concreteness, we consider a minimal version of the theory where cosmology undergoes an accelerated expansion at late times and show that the perturbative stability is preserved for a range of parameters.

Phenomenology of the generalized cubic covariant Galileon model and cosmological bounds

We investigate the generalized cubic covariant Galileon model, a kinetically driven dark energy model within the Horndeski class of theories. The model extends the cubic covariant Galileon by including power laws of the field derivatives in the K-essence and cubic terms which still allow for tracker solutions. We study the shape of the viable parameter space by enforcing stability conditions which include the absence of ghost, gradient and tachyon instabilities and the avoidance of strong coupling at early time. We study here the relevant effects of the modifications induced by the model on some cosmological observables such as the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the lensing potential auto-correlation and the matter power spectrum. For this goal, we perform parameter estimation using data of CMB temperature and polarization, baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO), redshift-space distortions (RSD), supernovae type Ia (SNIa) and Cepheids. Data analysis with CMB alone finds that the today's Hubble parameter $H_0$ is consistent with its determination from Cepheids at $1\sigma$, resolving the famous tension of the cosmological standard models. The joint analysis of CMB, BAO, RSD and SNIa sets a lower bound for the sum of neutrino masses which is $\Sigma m_\nu >0.11$ eV at 1$\sigma$, in addition to the usual upper limit. The model selection analysis based on the effective $\chi_\text{eff}^2$ and Deviance Information Criterion is not able to clearly identify the statistically favored model between $\Lambda$CDM and the generalized cubic covariant Galileon, from which we conclude that the latter model deserves further studies.

Black holes with a nonconstant kinetic term in degenerate higher-order scalar tensor theories

We investigate static and spherically symmetric black hole (BH) solutions in shift-symmetric quadratic-order degenerate higher-order scalar-tensor (DHOST) theories. We allow a nonconstant kinetic term $X=g^{\mu\nu} \partial_\mu\phi\partial_\nu \phi$ for the scalar field $\phi$ and assume that $\phi$ is, like the spacetime, a pure function of the radial coordinate $r$, namely $\phi=\phi(r)$. First, we find analytic static and spherically symmetric vacuum solutions in the so-called {\it Class Ia} DHOST theories, which include the quartic Horndeski theories as a subclass. We consider several explicit models in this class and apply our scheme to find the exact vacuum BH solutions. BH solutions obtained in our analysis are neither Schwarzschild or Schwarzschild (anti-) de Sitter. We show that a part of the BH solutions obtained in our analysis are free of ghost and Laplacian instabilities and are also mode stable against the odd-parity perturbations. Finally, we argue the case that the scalar field has a linear time dependence $\phi=qt+\psi (r)$ and show several simple examples of nontrivial BH solutions with a nonconstant kinetic term obtained analytically and numerically.

Cuscuton gravity as a classically stable limiting curvature theory

Finding effective theories of modified gravity that can resolve cosmological singularities and avoid other physical pathologies such as ghost and gradient instabilities has turned out to be a rather difficult task. The concept of limiting curvature, where one bounds a finite number of curvature-invariant functions thanks to constraint equations, is a promising avenue in that direction, but its implementation has only led to mixed results. Cuscuton gravity, which can be defined as a special subclass of k-essence theory for instance, is a minimal modification of gravity since it does not introduce any new degrees of freedom on a cosmological background. Importantly, it naturally incorporates the idea of limiting curvature. Accordingly, models of cuscuton gravity are shown to possess non-singular cosmological solutions and those appear stable at first sight. Yet, various subtleties arise in the perturbations such as apparent divergences, e.g., when the Hubble parameter crosses zero. We revisit the cosmological perturbations in various gauges and demonstrate that the stability results are robust even at those crossing points, although certain gauges are better suited to analyze the perturbations. In particular, the spatially-flat gauge is found to be ill defined when H=0. Otherwise, the sound speed is confirmed to be generally close to unity in the ultraviolet, and curvature perturbations are shown to remain essentially constant in the infrared throughout a bounce phase. Perturbations for a model of extended cuscuton (as a subclass of Horndeski theory) are also studied and similar conclusions are recovered.

Inflation in generalized unimodular gravity

The recently suggested generalized unimodular gravity theory, which was originally put forward as a model of dark energy, can serve as a model of cosmological inflation driven by the effective perfect fluid -- the dark purely gravitational sector of the theory. Its excitations are scalar gravitons which can generate, in the domain free from ghost and gradient instabilities, the red tilted primordial power spectrum of CMB perturbations matching with observations. The reconstruction of the parametric dependence of the action of the theory in the early inflationary Universe is qualitatively sketched from the cosmological data. The alternative possibilities of generating the cosmological acceleration or quantum transition to the general relativistic phase of the theory are also briefly discussed.

Two-field mimetic gravity revisited and Hamiltonian analysis

We revisit the two-field mimetic gravity model with shift symmetries recently proposed in the literature, especially the problems of degrees of freedom and stabilities. We first study the model at the linear cosmological perturbation level by quadratic Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations. We show that there are actually two (instead of one) scalar degrees of freedom in this model in addition to two tensor modes. We then push on the study to the full non-linear level in terms of the Hamiltonian analysis, and confirm our result from the linear perturbation theory. We also consider the case where the kinetic terms of the two mimetic scalar fields have opposite signs in the constraint equation. We point out that in this case the model always suffers from the ghost instability problem.

Cosmological attractors to general relativity and spontaneous scalarization with disformal coupling

The canonical scalar-tensor theory model which exhibits spontaneous scalarization in the strong-gravity regime of neutron stars has long been known to predict a cosmological evolution for the scalar field which generically results in severe violations of present-day Solar System constraints on deviations from general relativity. We study if this tension can be alleviated by generalizing this model to include a disformal coupling between the scalar field $\varphi$ and matter, where the Jordan frame metric ${\tilde g}_{\mu\nu}$ is related to the Einstein frame one $g_{\mu\nu}$ by ${\tilde g}_{\mu\nu}=A(\varphi)^2 (g_{\mu\nu}+\Lambda\, \partial_\mu \varphi \, \partial_\nu\varphi)$. We find that this broader theory admits a late-time attractor mechanism towards general relativity. However, the existence of this attractor requires a value of disformal scale of the order $\Lambda\gtrsim H_0^{-2}$, where $H_0$ is the Hubble parameter of today, which is much larger than the scale relevant for spontaneous scalarization of neutron stars $\Lambda \sim R_s^{2}$ with $R_s (\sim 10^{-22} H_0^{-1})$ being the typical radius of these stars. The large values of $\Lambda$ necessary for the attractor mechanism (i) suppress spontaneous scalarization altogether inside neutron stars and (ii) induce ghost instabilities on scalar field fluctuations, thus preventing a resolution of the tension. We argue that the problem arises because our disformal coupling involves a dimensionful parameter.

Stability conditions in the generalized SU(2) Proca theory

Under the same spirit of the Galileon-Horndeski theories and their more modern extensions, the generalized SU(2) Proca theory was built by demanding that its action may be free of the Ostrogradski's instability. Nevertheless, the theory must also be free of other instability problems in order to ensure its viability. As a first approach to address this issue, we concentrate on a quite general variant of the theory and investigate the general conditions for the absence of ghost and gradient instabilities in the tensor sector without the need for resolving the dynamical background. The phenomenological interest of this approach as well as of the variant investigated lies on the possibility of building cosmological models driven solely by non-Abelian vector fields that may account for a successful description of both the early inflation and the late-time accelerated expansion of the universe.

Mimetic DBI Inflation in Confrontation with Planck2018 Data

Abstract We study mimetic gravity in the presence of a Dirac–Born–Infeld (DBI)-like term, which is a non-canonical setup of the scalar field’s derivatives. We consider two general cases with varying and constant sound speeds and construct the potentials for both the DBI and mimetic DBI (MDBI) models. By considering the power-law scale factor as a = a 0 t n , we search for the observational viability of these models. We show that the MDBI model in some ranges of the parameter space is free from ghost and gradient instabilities. By studying the behavior of r–n s and α s –n s in confrontation with Planck2018 data, we find some constraints on the model’s parameters. We show that, for the case with varying sound speed, power-law DBI inflation is not consistent with Planck2018 TT, TE, EE+lowE+lensing data, but the MDBI inflation is consistent with the same data at 95% confidence level, in some ranges of the model’s parameter space such as 40 ≤ n ≤ 55; the model is also free from instabilities in these ranges of parameters. For a constant sound speed, we study both DBI and MDBI models numerically by adopting some sample values of c s , and find n ∼ 102 for the DBI model and n ∼ 10 for the MDBI model. We also compare the results with Planck2018 TT, TE, EE+lowE+lensing+BK14+BAO data and see that the DBI and MDBI models with varying sound speed are ruled out by these joint data. However, these models with constant sound speed are consistent with the same data, with n ∼ 102 for the DBI model and n ∼ 10 for the MDBI model. In this case, we find some tighter constraints on the corresponding sound speed.

Avoiding instabilities in antisymmetric tensor field driven inflation

Models of inflation with antisymmetric tensor studied in the past are plagued with ghost instability even in an unperturbed FRW background. We show that it is possible to avoid ghosts in an unperturbed FRW background by considering the most general kinetic term for antisymmetric tensor field. The kinetic part acquires a new gauge symmetry violating term whose effect on perturbed modes is to prevent the appearance of nondynamical modes, and thus avoid ghosts. For completeness, we perform a check for gradient instability and derive the conditions for perturbations to be free of gradient instability.

Cosmological dynamics and double screening of DBI-Galileon gravity

We investigate cosmological dynamics and screening mechanism of the Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) Galileon model. The model has been divided into two regimes, one has positive signs in front of scalar field kinetic terms so-called the DBI galileon, another one has negative signs and it is dubbed as the DBIonic galileon. We find de Sitter solution and evolution of the Universe starting from radiation dominated era to late-time accelerated expansion in the DBI galileon model without the presence of potential term. In one of the attractors, the ghost and Laplacian instabilities vanishes for the whole evolution. We find mixing of screening mechanisms between the Vainshtein mechanism and the DBIonic screening mechanism in the DBIonic galileon model, in which a scale changing between these two mechanisms depends on a mass of a source.

Dynamics of the generalized unimodular gravity theory

The Hamiltonian formalism of the generalized unimodular gravity theory, which was recently suggested as a model of dark energy, is shown to be a complicated example of constrained dynamical system. The set of its canonical constraints has a bifurcation -- splitting of the theory into two branches differing by the number and type of these constraints, one of the branches effectively describing a gravitating perfect fluid with the time-dependent equation of state, which can potentially play the role of dark energy in cosmology. The first class constraints in this branch generate local gauge symmetries of the Lagrangian action -- two spatial diffeomorphisms -- and rule out the temporal diffeomorphism which does not have a realization in the form of the canonical transformation on phase space of the theory and turns out to be either nonlocal in time or violating boundary conditions at spatial infinity. As a consequence, the Hamiltonian reduction of the model enlarges its physical sector from two general relativistic modes to three degrees of freedom including the scalar graviton. This scalar mode is free from ghost and gradient instabilities on the Friedmann background in a wide class of models subject to a certain restriction on time-dependent parameter $w$ of the dark fluid equation of state, $p=w\varepsilon$. For a special family of models this scalar mode can be ruled out even below the phantom divide line $w=-1$, but this line cannot be crossed in the course of the cosmological expansion. This is likely to disable the generalized unimodular gravity as a model of the phenomenologically consistent dark energy scenario, but opens the prospects in inflation theory with a scalar graviton playing the role of inflaton.

Interactions of Multiple Spin-2 Fields beyond Pairwise Couplings.

Thus far, all known ghost-free interactions of multiple spin-2 fields have involved at most pairwise couplings of the fields, which are direct generalizations of bimetric interactions. We present a class of spin-2 theories with genuine multifield interactions and explicitly demonstrate the absence of ghost instabilities. The construction involves integrating out a nondynamical field in a theory of spin-2 fields with only pairwise ghost-free interactions. The new multivierbein interactions generated are not always expressible in terms of the associated metrics.