This thesis is dedicated to the study of theories of massive gravity. The formulation of higher spin gauge field theories, along with a Chern-Simons (CS) like term for fields of higher spins is presented. Through this setup, general features of theories describing massless/massive fields of higher spin in arbitrary dimensions is discussed. In 2+1 dimensions, the existence of multiple mass-generating mechanisms i.e. metric-based masses and topological masses, offers the possibility for gauge bosons to acquire mixed masses. This scenario is first introduced in a theory of photons where both Proca mass term and CS mass term is simultaneously present. The mass-mixing which occurs in this theory is further analysed through the Stückelberg formalism. Motivated by these results, a theory of massive gravity where gravitons obtain masses from both Fierz-Pauli mass term and CS mass term is studied. This theory allows for 3 propagating massive graviton modes, and their masses have undergone considerable mixing. This mass-mixing is made explicit through a Stückelberg analysis. The bimetric theory of gravity is a non-trivial generalization of the theory of General Relativity. This theory provides a consistent non-linear theory of massive gravity which is studied in detail. In this thesis, the bimetric theory of gravity is extended in 2+1 dimensiosn to the theory of Topologically Massive Bimetric Gravity (TMBG). In the theory of TMBG, the mass-mixing which arises from the interaction of the two metrics and their corresponding CS terms occurs at the nonlinear stage itself. For the version of TMBG studied in this thesis, the linearized theory shows that there are 3 massive graviton modes, which corresponds to the same 3 modes found earlier. Finally, quantum loop corrections to the graviton propagator from massive photons (which acquire mass from both CS and Proca mechanism) is calculated.
We discuss locally Weyl (scale) covariant generalisations of gravitational theories using Riemann-Cartan-Weyl space-times in arbitrary dimensions. We demonstrate the procedure of Weyl gauging on two examples in particular: General relativity, and topologically massive gravity in three dimensions.
The linearized equations of `New Massive Gravity' propagate a parity doublet of massive spin-2 modes in 3D Minkowski spacetime, but a different non-linear extension is made possible by `third-way' consistency. There is a `Chern-Simons-like' action, as for other 3D massive gravity models, but the new theory is `exotic': its action is parity odd. This `Exotic Massive Gravity' is the next-to-simplest case in an infinite sequence of third-way consistent 3D gravity theories, the simplest being the `Minimal Massive Gravity' alternative to `Topologically Massive Gravity'.
We start by briefly reviewing the description of gravity theories as gauge theories in four dimensions. More specifically we recall the procedure leading to the results of General Relativity and Weyl Gravity in a gauge-theoretic manner. Then, after a brief reminder of the formulation of gauge theories on noncommutative spaces, we review our recent work, where gravity is constructed as a gauge theory on the fuzzy $dS_4$.
We present locally scale (Weyl) covariant generalisation of Minimal Massive Gravity theory using the language of exterior differential forms on Riemann-Cartan-Weyl space-times. The theory is expressed by a locally scale invariant action and locally scale covariant field equations are found by a first order variational formalism.
Generalised Proca theories of gravity represent an interesting class of vector-tensor theories where only three propagating degrees of freedom are present. In this work, we propose a new teleparallel gravity analog to Proca theories where the generalised Proca framework is extended due to the lower order nature of torsion based gravity. We develop a new action contribution and explore the example of the Friedmann equations in this regime. We find that teleparallel Proca theories offer the possibility of a much larger class of models in which do have an impact on background cosmology.
We review the current status of the Lorentz covariance in teleparallel and modified teleparallel theories of gravity, and discuss the controversial features of the different approaches. We also revisit the issue of the remnant Lorentz gauge symmetries in $f(T)$ gravity.
A ghost free massive deformation of unimodular gravity (UG), in the spirit of {\em mimetic massive gravity}, is shown to exist. This construction avoids the no-go theorem for a Fierz-Pauli type of mass term in UG by giving up on Lorentz invariance. In our framework, the mimetic degree of freedom vanishes on-shell.
In this work, a correspondence between black hole solutions of conformal and massive theories of gravity is found. It is seen that this correspondence imposes some constraints on parameters of these theories. What is more, a relation between the mass of black holes and the parameters of massive gravity is found. Indeed, the acceptable ranges of massive gravity parameters ($c_{1}$\ and $c_{2}$) are found. It is shown that by considering the positive mass of black holes, some ranges of $c_{1}$\ and $c_{2}$ are acceptable.
We study the null geodesics in a static circularly symmetric (SCS) black hole spacetime which is a solution in the $(2+1)$-dimensional massive gravity proposed by Bergshoeff, Hohm and Townsend (BHT massive gravity). We obtain analytic solutions for the null geodesic equation in the SCS black hole background and find the explicit form of deflection angles. We see that for various values of the impact parameter, the deflection angle can be positive, negative or even zero in this black hole spacetime. The negative deflection angle indicates the repulsive behavior of the gravity which comes from t…
We show that the space of solutions of a wide family of Ricci-based metric-affine theories of gravity can be put into correspondence with the space of solutions of general relativity (GR). This allows us to use well-established methods and results from GR to explore new gravitational physics beyond it.
In this paper, we study the collapsing scenario for the k-essence emergent Vaidya spacetime in the context of massive gravity's rainbow. For this study, we consider that the background metric is Vaidya spacetime in massive gravity's rainbow. We show that the k-essence emergent gravity metric resembles closely to the new type of generalized Vaidya massive gravity metric with the rainbow deformations for null fluid collapse where we consider the k-essence scalar field as a function solely of the advanced or the retarded time. The k-essence emergent Vaidya massive gravity rainbow mass function is…
The "complexity = action" duality states that the quantum complexity is equal to the action of the stationary AdS black holes within the Wheeler-DeWitt patch at late time approximation. We compute the action growth rates of the neutral and charged black holes in massive gravity and the neutral, charged and Kerr-Newman black holes in $f(R)$ gravity to test this conjecture. Besides, we investigate the effects of the massive graviton terms, higher derivative terms and the topology of the black hole horizon on the complexity growth rate.
On the holographic complexity dual to the bulk action, we investigate the action growth for a shock wave geometry in a massive gravity theory within the Wheeler-De Witt (WDW) patch at the late time limit. For a global shock wave, the graviton mass does not affect the action growth in the bulk, i.e. the complexity on the boundary, showing that the action growth (complexity) is the same for both the Einstein gravity and the massive gravity. Nevertheless, for a local shock wave that depends on transverse coordinates, the action growth (complexity) is proportional to the butterfly velocity for the…
We introduce the Brans-Dick de Rham-Gabadadze-Tolley massive gravity theory which is the new extension of nonlinear massive gravity. We demonstrate a detailed study of the cosmological properties of this theory of gravity, and we show the transformation of the Jordan frame to the Einstein frame. We obtain the cosmological background equations and show the analyses of self-accelerating solutions for explaining the accelerated expansion of the Universe. In the following, we analyze the background perturbations, which consist of tensor, vector, and scalar perturbations within the framework of the…
In this paper, we study the Casimir force for a class of Lorentzian nonlocal field theories. These theories include a continuum of massive excitations. In this regard, the effect of continuum massive modes on Casimir force is of interest. We focus on the simplest case of two absorbing parallel planes in 1+1 dimensions, and we show that unlike local field theories, the thickness of the absorbing "walls" changes the value of Casimir force.
In this paper, we generalize the study of the model of holographic superconductor in the excited states to the framework of massive gravity. By taking into account the effect of massive graviton, we numerically present a family of solutions of the holographic superconductor in excited states, and find that the critical temperatures can be higher due to the effect of massive graviton comparing with the superconductor in Einstein gravity. We also investigate the condensates and conductivities in the ground state and the excited states with studying various parameters that determine the framework…
