A Stueckelberg Approach to Quadratic Curvature Gravity and its Decoupling Limits

Abstract

Curvature squared terms, when added to the Einstein-Hilbert action and treated non-perturbatively, generically result in the propagation of an extra massive scalar state and an extra massive spin-2 ghost state. Using the Stueckelberg trick, we study the high-energy limit in which the mass of the spin-2 state is taken to zero, with strong- coupling scales held fixed. The Stueckelberg approach makes transparent the interplay between the ghost graviton and the healthy graviton which allows the theory to evade the usual lambda-3 strong coupling scale of massive gravity and become renormalizable, at the expense of stability.

17 pages. v2 minus sign fixed, other small changes

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• A Universal Bound on the Strong Coupling Scale of a Gravitationally Coupled Massive Spin-2 Particle
• Nonlinear Evolution of Quadratic Gravity in 3+1 Dimensions
• Starobinsky inflation with a quadratic Weyl tensor
• About the Cauchy problem in Stelle's quadratic gravity
• Novel nonlinear kinetic terms for gravitons
• Stability of Schwarzshild black holes in quadratic gravity with Weyl curvature domination
• Linearized gravity in terms of differential forms
• Ultraviolet Completion of the Big Bang in Quadratic Gravity
• Conformal Cores of Quantum Black Holes in Quadratic Gravity
• An ostentatious model of cosmological scalar-tensor theory
• The role of longitudinal polarizations in Horndeski and macroscopic gravity: Introducing gravitational plasmas
• Analytical constraints on gravitational models with a quadratic Weyl tensor
• The Exterior Calculus of Quadratic Gravity