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Higher derivative field theories: degeneracy conditions and classes

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  • Published: 23 June 2017
  • Volume 2017, article number 124, (2017)
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Higher derivative field theories: degeneracy conditions and classes
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  • Marco Crisostomi1,
  • Remko Klein2 &
  • Diederik Roest2 

  • 487 Accesses

  • 54 Citations

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  • 1 Mention

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A preprint version of the article is available at arXiv.

Abstract

We provide a full analysis of ghost free higher derivative field theories with coupled degrees of freedom. Assuming the absence of gauge symmetries, we derive the degeneracy conditions in order to evade the Ostrogradsky ghosts, and analyze which (non)trivial classes of solutions this allows for. It is shown explicitly how Lorentz invariance avoids the propagation of “half” degrees of freedom. Moreover, for a large class of theories, we construct the field redefinitions and/or (extended) contact transformations that put the theory in a manifestly first order form. Finally, we identify which class of theories cannot be brought to first order form by such transformations.

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Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, PO1 3FX, U.K.

    Marco Crisostomi

  2. Van Swinderen Institute for Particle Physics and Gravity, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Remko Klein & Diederik Roest

Authors
  1. Marco Crisostomi
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  2. Remko Klein
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Remko Klein.

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ArXiv ePrint: 1703.01623

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Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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Cite this article

Crisostomi, M., Klein, R. & Roest, D. Higher derivative field theories: degeneracy conditions and classes. J. High Energ. Phys. 2017, 124 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP06(2017)124

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  • Received: 27 March 2017

  • Accepted: 18 June 2017

  • Published: 23 June 2017

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP06(2017)124

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Keywords

  • Classical Theories of Gravity
  • Cosmology of Theories beyond the SM
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