On the curious spectrum of duality invariant higher-derivative gravity

Abstract

We analyze the spectrum of the exactly duality and gauge invariant higher-derivative double field theory. While this theory is based on a chiral CFT and does not correspond to a standard string theory, our analysis illuminates a number of issues central in string theory. The full quadratic action is rewritten as a two-derivative theory with additional fields. This allows for a simple analysis of the spectrum, which contains two massive spin-2 ghosts and massive scalars, in addition to the massless fields. Moreover, in this formulation, the massless or tensionless limit ${\alpha }^{\prime }\to \infty$ is non-singular and leads to an enhanced gauge symmetry. We show that the massive modes can be integrated out exactly at the quadratic level, leading to an infinite series of higher-derivative corrections. Finally, we present a ghost-free massive extension of linearized double field theory, which employs a novel mass term for the dilaton and metric.

28 pages. Minor typos corrected. Matches with the published version

References in corpus (6)

• Massive Gravity in Three Dimensions
• Double Field Theory
• Double Field Theory at Order ${\alpha }^{\prime }$
• Green-Schwarz mechanism and ${\alpha }^{\prime }$-deformed Courant brackets
• Modes of Log Gravity
• Unitarity in the Brout-Englert-Higgs Mechanism for Gravity

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• An ${\alpha }^{\prime }$-complete theory of cosmology and its tensionless limit
• String Excitation by Initial Singularity of Inflation
• Massive strings from a haunted field theory
• $O(d,d;\mathbb{Z})$ invariant Fierz-Pauli massive gravity
• Residues of bosonic string scattering amplitudes and the Lauricella functions