On the maximally symmetric vacua of generic Lovelock gravities
Deniz Olgu Devecioğlu, Ulf Lindström, Özgür Sarıoğlu
备注：
prepared as a contribution to the special issue of "Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical" dedicated to the memory of Stanley Deser; 20 pages, no figures; version 2: references added, 21 pages; version 3: improved with new calculations in Section 3 and Appendix B, 22 pages; version 4: matches the accepted copy with 4 new references
We survey elementary features of Lovelock gravity and its maximally symmetric vacuum solutions. The latter is solely determined by the real roots of a dimension-dependent polynomial. We also recover the static spherically symmetric (black hole) solutions of Lovelock gravity using Palais' symmetric criticality principle. We show how to linearize the generic field equations of Lovelock models about a given maximally symmetric vacuum, which turns out to factorize into the product of yet another dimension-dependent polynomial and the linearized Einstein tensor about the relevant background. We also describe how to compute conserved charges using linearized field equations along with the relevant background Killing isometries. We further describe and discuss the special vacua which are defined by the simultaneous vanishing of the aforementioned polynomials.
We define a "holographic limit" of Lancsoz-Lovelock theories at the Lagrangian level which gives three-dimensional modified gravity theories. We also show that this limit applies to more general classes of theories in higher dimensions provided that they admit the holographic c-theorem.
For appropriate choices of the coupling constants, the equations of motion of Lovelock gravities up to order n in the Riemann tensor can be factorized such that the theories admits a single (A)dS vacuum. In this paper we construct two classes of exact rotating metrics in such critical Lovelock gravities of order n in d=2n+1 dimensions. In one class, the n angular momenta in the n orthogonal spatial 2-planes are equal, and hence the metric is of cohomogeneity one. We construct these metrics in a Kerr-Schild form, but they can then be recast in terms of Boyer-Lindquist coordinates. The other cla…
The Lovelock gravity is a fascinating extension of general relativity, whose action consists of the dimensionally extended Euler densities. Compared to other higher order derivative gravity theories, the Lovelock gravity is attractive since it has a lot of remarkable features such as that there are no more than second order derivatives with respect to metric in its equations of motion, and that the theory is free of ghost. Recently in the study of black string and black brane in the Lovelock gravity, a special class of Lovelock gravity is considered, which is named pure Lovelock gravity, where…
In this work, we provide consistent compactifications of Einstein-Maxwell and Einstein-Maxwell-Lovelock theories on direct product spacetimes of the form $\mathcal{M}_D=\mathcal{M}_d\times\mathcal{K}^{p}$, where $\mathcal{K}^p$ is a Euclidean internal manifold of constant curvature. For these compactifications to take place, it is required the distribution of a precise flux of $p$-forms over the internal manifold. The dynamic of the $p$-forms are demanded to be controlled by two types of interaction. First, by specific couplings with the curvature tensor and, second, by a suitable interaction …
We explicitly confirm the expectation that generic Lovelock gravity in D dimensions has a unitary massless spin-2 excitation around any one of its constant curvature vacua just like the cosmological Einstein gravity. The propagator of the theory reduces to that of Einstein's gravity, but scattering amplitudes must be computed with an effective Newton's constant which we provide. Tree-level unitarity imposes a single constraint on the parameters of the theory yielding a wide range of unitary region. As an example, we explicitly work out the details of the cubic Lovelock theory.
f(Lovelock) gravities are simple generalizations of the usual f(R) and Lovelock theories in which the gravitational action depends on some arbitrary function of the corresponding dimensionally-extended Euler densities. In this paper we study several aspects of these theories in general dimensions. We start by identifying the generalized boundary term which makes the gravitational variational problem well-posed. Then, we show that these theories are equivalent to certain scalar-tensor theories and how this relation is characterized by the Hessian of f. We also study the linearized equations of …
A (3+1)-dimensional Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet effective description of gravity has been recently formulated as the $D \to 4$ limit of the higher dimensional field equations after the rescaling of the coupling constant. This approach has been recently extended to the four-dimensional Einstein-Lovelock gravity. Although validity of the regularization procedure has not been shown for the general case, but only for a wide class of metrics, the black-hole solution obtained as a result of such a regularization is also an exact solution in the well defined 4D Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet theory suggested by Aok…
Vacuum solutions of Lovelock gravity in the presence of a recurrent null vector field (a subset of Kundt spacetimes) are studied. We first discuss the general field equations, which constrain both the base space and the profile functions. While choosing a "generic" base space puts stronger constraints on the profile, in special cases there also exist solutions containing arbitrary functions (at least for certain values of the coupling constants). These and other properties (such as the pp-waves subclass and the overlap with VSI, CSI and universal spacetimes) are subsequently analyzed in more d…
There has recently been an increasing interest in regularizations of Lovelock-Lanczos gravity (LLG) in four dimensions, in which dimensional poles and possibly counter-terms are introduced to compensate the vanishing of the Lovelock field equations in critical and lower dimensions. In this paper, we review and extend some of these results. We first find a class of LLG theories whose perturbative expansion around a given (A)dS vacuum can be regularized up to arbitrary order, the simplest one being close to Lovelock gravities with a unique vacuum. If well-defined, these models might be interpret…
We investigate a novel mechanism for phase transitions that is a distinctive feature of higher-curvature gravity theories. For definiteness, we bound ourselves to the case of Lovelock gravities. These theories are known to have several branches of asymptotically AdS solutions. Here, extending our previous work, we show that phase transitions among some of these branches are driven by a thermalon configuration: a bubble separating two regions of different effective cosmological constants, generically hosting a black hole in the interior. Above some critical temperature, this thermalon configura…
Lovelock theory is the natural extension of general relativity to higher dimensions. It can be also thought of as a toy model for ghost-free higher curvature gravity. It admits a family of AdS vacua, most (but not all) of them supporting black holes that display interesting features. This provides an appealing arena to explore different holographic aspects in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence.
We consider a model where massive static spherically symmetric black hole, in the presence of power-Yang-Mills source, is surrounded by a dark fluid with non-linear equation of state. In this set up we construct a new class of magnetized Lovelock black hole solutions of the gravitational field equations. In particular, we work out the metric functions in both D-dimensional massive Einstein and massive Gauss-Bonnet gravities. We study thermodynamics of these black holes also and show that the mass and associated thermodynamic quantities like Hawking temperature and heat capacity depend on param…
We study the parameter space of D-dimensional cosmological Einstein gravity together with quadratic curvature terms. In D>4 there are in general two distinct (anti)-de Sitter vacua. We show that for appropriate choice of the parameters there exists a critical point for one of the vacua, for which there are only massless tensor, but neither massive tensor nor scalar, gravitons. At criticality, the linearized excitations have vanishing energy (as do black hole solutions). A further restriction of the parameters gives a one-parameter cosmological Einstein plus Weyl^2 model with a unique vacuum, w…
Lovelock theory is the natural extension of general relativity to higher dimensions. It can be also thought of as a toy model for ghost-free higher curvature corrections in gravitational theories. It admits a family of AdS vacua, which provides an appealing arena to explore different holographic aspects in a broader setup within the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence. We will elaborate on these features and review previous work concerning the constraints that Lovelock theory entails on the CFT parameters when imposing conditions like unitarity, positivity of the energy or causality.
According to Lovelock's theorem, the Hilbert-Einstein and the Lovelock actions are indistinguishable from their field equations. However, they have different scalar-tensor counterparts, which correspond to the Brans-Dicke and the \emph{Lovelock-Brans-Dicke} (LBD) gravities, respectively. In this paper the LBD model of alternative gravity with the Lagrangian density $\mathscr{L}_{\text{LBD}}=\frac{1}{16π}\left[ϕ\left( R +\frac{a}{\sqrt{-g}}{}^*RR + b\mathcal{G}\right)-\frac{ω_{\text{L}}}ϕ\nabla_αϕ\nabla^αϕ\right]$ is developed, where ${}^*RR$ and $\mathcal{G}$ respectively denote the topologica…
Static asymptotically Lifshitz wormholes and black holes in vacuum are shown to exist for a class of Lovelock theories in d=2n+1>7 dimensions, selected by requiring that all but one of their n maximally symmetric vacua are AdS of radius l and degenerate. The wormhole geometry is regular everywhere and connects two Lifshitz spacetimes with a nontrivial geometry at the boundary. The dynamical exponent z is determined by the quotient of the curvature radii of the maximally symmetric vacua according to n(z^2-1)+1=(l/L)^2, where L corresponds to the curvature radius of the nondegenerate vacuum. Lig…
It is shown that the notion of Conformal Mass can be defined within a given anti-de Sitter (AdS) branch of a Lovelock gravity theory as long as the corresponding vacuum is not degenerate. Indeed, conserved charges obtained by the addition of Kounterterms to the bulk action turn out to be proportional to the electric part of the Weyl tensor, when the fall-off of a generic solution in that AdS branch is considered. The factor of proportionality is the degeneracy condition for the vacua in the particular Lovelock AdS theory under study. This last feature explains the obstruction to define Conform…
A four-dimensional regularization of Lovelock-Lanczos gravity up to an arbitrary curvature order is considered. We show that Lovelock-Lanczos terms can provide a non-trivial contribution to the Einstein field equations in four dimensions, for spherically symmetric and Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker spacetimes, as well as at first order in perturbation theory around (anti) de Sitter vacua. We will discuss the cosmological and black hole solutions arising from these theories, focusing on the presence of attractors and their stability. Although curvature singularities persist for any finite …
We study the dual fluid on a finite cutoff surface outside the black brane horizon in the third order Lovelock gravity. Using nonrelativistic long-wavelength expansion, we obtain the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations of dual fluid with external force density on the finite cutoff surface. The viscosity to entropy density ratio $η/s$ is independent of cutoff surface and does not get modification from the third order Lovelock gravity influence. The obtained ratio agrees with the results obtained by using other methods, such as the Kubo formula at the AdS boundary and the membrane paradigm at…
In this paper, we test the weak cosmic censorship conjecture (WCCC) in the nearly extremal static charged black holes of Lanczos-Lovelock-Maxwell gravity based on the new version of gedanken experiments proposed by Sorce and Wald. After introducing the null energy condition of the matter fields, we show that the (nearly) extremal black holes can be destroyed under the first-order approximation for the case with $S'(r_h)\leq 0$, where $S(r_h)$ is the entropy of the background black hole geometry in Lanczos-Lovelock gravity. It implies that the WCCC is violated in these situations. For the case …
We employ the Noether procedure to derive a general formula for the radially conserved heat current in AdS planar black holes with certain transverse and traceless perturbations, for a general class of gravity theories. For Einstein gravity, the general higher-order Lovelock gravities and also a class of Horndeski gravities, we derive the boundary stress tensor and show that the resulting boundary heat current matches precisely the bulk Noether current.
In this paper, we introduce the counterterms that remove the non-logarithmic divergences of the action in third order Lovelock gravity for static spacetimes. We do this by defining the cosmological constant in such a way that the asymptotic form of the metric have the same form in Lovelock and Einstein gravities. Thus, we employ the counterterms of Einstein gravity and show that the power law divergences of the action of Lovelock gravity for static spacetimes can be removed by suitable choice of coefficients. We find that the dependence of these coefficients on the dimension in Lovelock gravit…
We derive an expression for conserved charges in Lovelock AdS gravity for solutions having $k$-fold degenerate vacua, making manifest a link between the degeneracy of a given vacuum and the nonlinearity of the energy formula. We show for a black hole solution to the field equations on a branch of multiplicity $k$ that its mass comes from an expression that contains the product of $k$ Weyl tensors. We prove that all divergent contributions of the type (Weyl)$^q$, with $1\le q<k$, are suppressed. Our conserved charge definition is a natural generalization of the Conformal Mass by Ashtekar, Magno…
We obtain the classical holographic relation for the general Lovelock gravity and decompose the full Lagrangian into the bulk term and the surface term, expressed as a total derivative $\partial_μJ^μ$. By classical holographic relation, we mean that $J^μ$ is determined completely by the bulk term. We find that the bulk term is not degenerate, or first-order in this foliation-independent approach. We then consider the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner (ADM) formalism where the foliation coordinate $w$ is treated as special. We obtain the classical holographic-degenerate relation with the first-order bulk t…
Accelerating vacua with maximally symmetric, but not necessarily spherical, sections for Einstein and Gauss-Bonnet gravities in generic dimensions are obtained. The acceleration parameter has the effect of shifting the cosmological constants in Einstein gravity, whereas in Gauss-Bonnet gravity the effective cosmological constants remain the same in the presence of acceleration as in the case without acceleration.
In gravitational thermodynamics, the entropy of a black hole with distinct surface gravities can be evaluated in a microcanonical ensemble. At the $WKB$ level, the entropy becomes the negative of the Euclidean action of the constrained instanton, which is the seed for the black hole creation in the no-boundary universe. Using the Gauss-Bonnet theorem, we prove the quite universal formula in Euclidean quantum gravity that the entropy of a nonrotating black hole is one quarter the sum of the products of the Euler characteristics and the areas of the horizons. For Lovelock gravity, the entropy an…
In this work it is introduced an extension of the study of the first law of thermodynamics of black holes based on the geometry of the extended phase space for AdS Lovelock gravities which includes changes of scales. As expected, the result obtained coincides with the previously known four dimensional case. For higher dimensions, the result is the arise of two new contributions to the first law of thermodynamics. The first term corresponds to corrections of the usual definition of thermodynamics volume at the horizon, due to the presence of the higher curvature terms. The second term arises in…
We study third order Lovelock Gravity in $ D=7 $ at the critical point which three (A)dS vacua degenerate into one. We see there is not propagating graviton at the critical point. And also we compute the butterfly velocity for this theory at the critical point by considering the shock wave solutions near horizon, this is important to note that although there is no propagating graviton at the critical point, due to boundary gravitons the butterfly velocity is non-zero. Finally we observe that the butterfly velocity for third order Lovelock Gravity at the critical point in $ D=7 $ is less than t…
Recently, it has been suggested in [JHEP 12(2015)003] that the Brown-York mechanism can be used to measure the quasilocal energy in Lovelock gravity. We have used this method in a system of M0-branes and show that the Brown-York energy evolves in the process of birth and growth of Lovelock gravity. This can help us to predict phenomenological events which are emerged as due to dynamical structure of Lovelock gravity in our universe. In this model, first, M0-branes join to each other and form an M3-brane and an anti-M3-branes connected by an M2-brane. This system is named BIon. Universes and an…
We analyze the field equations of Lovelock gravity for the Kerr-Schild metric ansatz, $g_{ab}=\bar g_{ab} +λk_ak_b$, with background metric $\bar g_{ab}$, background null vector $k^a$ and free parameter $λ$. Focusing initially on the Gauss-Bonnet case, we find a simple extension of the Einstein gravity results only in theories having a unique constant curvature vacuum. The field equations then reduce to a single equation at order $λ^2$. More general Gauss-Bonnet theories having two distinct vacua yield a pair of equations, at orders $λ$ and $λ^2$ that are not obviously compatible. Our results …
We revisit the study of (A)dS black holes in Lovelock theories. We present a new tool that allows to attack this problem in full generality. In analyzing maximally symmetric Lovelock black holes with non-planar horizon topologies many distinctive and interesting features are observed. Among them, the existence of maximally symmetric vacua do not supporting black holes in vast regions of the space of gravitational couplings, multi-horizon black holes, and branches of solutions that suggest the existence of a rich diagram of phase transitions. The appearance of naked singularities seems unavoida…
Lovelock theory is a natural extension of the Einstein theory of general relativity to higher dimensions in which the first and second orders correspond, respectively, to general relativity and Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity. We present exact black hole solutions of $D\geq 4$-dimensional spacetime for first-, second-, and third-order Lovelock gravities in a string cloud background. Further, we compute the mass, temperature, and entropy of black hole solutions for the higher-dimensional general relativity and Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet theories and also perform thermodynamic stability of black holes.…
Quasi-topological terms in gravity can be viewed as those that give no contribution to the equations of motion for a special subclass of metric ansätze. They therefore play no rôle in constructing these solutions, but can affect the general perturbations. We consider Einstein gravity extended with Ricci tensor polynomial invariants, which admits Einstein metrics with appropriate effective cosmological constants as its vacuum solutions. We construct three types of quasi-topological gravities. The first type is for the most general static metrics with spherical, toroidal or hyperbolic isometries…
By including appropriate Riemman cubic invariants, we find that the dynamics of classical time crystals can be straightforwardly realized in Einstein gravity on the FLRW metric. The time reflection symmetry is spontaneously broken in the two vacua with the same scale factor $a$, but opposite $\dot a$. The tunneling from one vacuum to the other provides a robust mechanism for bounce universes; it always occurs for systems with positive energy density. For suitable matter energy-momentum tensor we also construct cyclic universes. Cosmological solutions that resemble the classical time crystals c…
We study several aspects of higher-order gravities constructed from general contractions of the Riemann tensor and the metric in arbitrary dimensions. First, we use the fast-linearization procedure presented in arXiv:1607.06463 to obtain the equations satisfied by the metric perturbation modes on a maximally symmetric background in the presence of matter and to classify $\mathcal{L}($Riemann$)$ theories according to their spectrum. Then, we linearize all theories up to quartic order in curvature and use this result to construct quartic versions of Einsteinian cubic gravity (ECG). In addition, …
Inspired by some recent works of Lovelock Brans-Dicke gravity and mimetic gravity, cosmology solutions in extensions of these two modified gravities are investigated. A non-local term is added to the Lovelock Brans-Dicke action and Gauss-Bonnet terms to the mimetic action,correspondingly. De Sitter and power scale factor solutions are then obtained in both theories. They can provide natural new approaches to a more accurate description of the unverse evolution.
We derive a BPS-like first order system of equations for a family of flat static domain walls (DWs) of dimensionally extended cubic Lovelock Gravity coupled to massive scalar self-interacting matter. The explicit construction of such DWs is achieved by introducing of an appropriate matter superpotential. We further analyse the dependence of the geometric properties of the asymptotically AdSd space-times representing distinct DWs on the shape of the matter potential, on the values of the Lovelock couplings and on the scalar field boundary conditions. Few explicit examples of Lovelock DWs interp…
The recently proposed restricted phase space thermodynamics is shown to be applicable to a large class of higher dimensional higher curvature gravity models coupled to Maxwell field, which are known as black hole scan models and are labeled by the spacetime dimension $d$ and the highest order $k$ of the Lanczos-Lovelock densities appearing in the action. Three typical example cases with $(d,k)=(5,1), (5,2)$ and $(6,2)$ are chosen as example cases and studied in some detail. These cases are representatives of Einstein-Hilbert, Chern-Simons and Born-Infield like gravity models. Our study indicat…
We implement a universal method for renormalizing AdS gravity actions applicable to arbitrary higher curvature theories in up to five dimensions. The renormalization procedure considers the extrinsic counterterm for Einstein-AdS gravity given by the Kounterterms scheme, but with a theory-dependent coupling constant that is fixed by the requirement of renormalization for the vacuum solution. This method is shown to work for a generic higher curvature gravity with arbitrary couplings except for a zero measure subset, which includes well-known examples where the asymptotic behavior is modified an…
We define the notion of energy, and compute its values, for gravitational systems involving terms quadratic in curvature. While our construction parallels that of ordinary Einstein gravity, there are significant differences both conceptually and concretely. In particular, for D=4, all purely quadratic models admit vacua of arbitrary constant curvature. Their energies, including that of conformal (Weyl) gravity, necessarily vanish in asymptotically flat spaces. Instead, they are proportional to that of the Abbott-Deser (AD) energy expression in constant curvature backgrounds and therefore also …
We study type II universal metrics of the Lorentzian signature. These metrics simultaneously solve vacuum field equations of all theories of gravitation with the Lagrangian being a polynomial curvature invariant constructed from the metric, the Riemann tensor and its covariant derivatives of an arbitrary order. We provide examples of type II universal metrics for all composite number dimensions. On the other hand, we have no examples for prime number dimensions and we prove the non-existence of type II universal spacetimes in five dimensions. We also present type II vacuum solutions of selecte…
We construct the most general, to cubic order in curvature, theory of gravity whose (most general) static spherically symmetric vacuum solutions are fully described by a single field equation. The theory possess the following remarkable properties: i) it has a well-defined Einstein gravity limit ii) it admits `Schwarzschild-like' solutions characterized by a single metric function iii) on maximally symmetric backgrounds it propagates the same degrees of freedom as Einstein's gravity iv) Lovelock and quasi-topological gravities, as well as the recently developed Einsteinian cubic gravity [ArXiv…
We consider instanton solutions of Euclidean Horava-Lifshitz gravity in four dimensions satisfying the detailed balance condition. They are described by geometric flows in three dimensions driven by certain combinations of the Cotton and Ricci tensors as well as the cosmological-constant term. The deformation curvature terms can have competing behavior leading to a variety of fixed points. The instantons interpolate between any two fixed points, which are vacua of topologically massive gravity with Lambda > 0, and their action is finite. Special emphasis is placed on configurations with SU(2) …
