We continue our studies of the ghost condensate (GC) with sixth-order dispersion relation. Contrary to the GC with quartic dispersion relation, we find that the correction to the Newtonian potential explicitly depends on the space and time dependence of matter density. At late times when the Newtonian potential becomes time-independent, one obtains similar oscillatory behavior at the distance $\frac{M_\textrm{Pl}}{M^2}$, but this time at the time scale $\frac{M^4}{M_\textrm{Pl}^3}$, where $M^2$ is the ghost field velocity. We also show that the speed of gravitational wave is modified in a frequency dependent manner at momenta close to $\frac{M_\textrm{Pl}}{\sqrt{|σ_1|}}$, where $σ_1$ is the coefficient of $γ^{ij} \nabla_i K_{lr} \nabla_j K^{lr}$ operator in the unitary gauge action.
In the setup of ghost condensation model the generalized second law of black hole thermodynamics can be respected under a radiatively stable assumption that couplings between the field responsible for ghost condensate and matter fields such as those in the Standard Model are suppressed by the Planck scale. Since not only black holes but also cosmology are expected to play important roles towards our better understanding of gravity, we consider a cosmological setup to test the theory of ghost condensation. In particular we shall show that the de Sitter entropy bound proposed by Arkani-Hamed, et…
In this letter we point out that the massive gravity theory with a graviton ghost mode in de Sitter background cannot possess a de Sitter invariant vacuum state. In order to avoid a negative norm state, we must associate the creation operator of the ghost mode with a negative-energy mode function instead of a positive-energy one as the mode function. Namely, we have to adopt a different procedure of quantization for a ghost. When a theory has a symmetry mixing a ghost mode with ordinary non-ghost modes, the choice of a ghost mode is not unique. However, quantization of a ghost is impossible wi…
We study the spectrum of gravitational perturbations around a vacuum de Sitter brane in a 5D asymmetric braneworld model, with induced curvature on the brane. This generalises the stealth acceleration model proposed by Charmousis, Gregory and Padilla (CGP) which realises the Cardassian cosmology in which power law cosmic acceleration can be driven by ordinary matter. Whenever the bulk has infinite volume we find that there is always a perturbative ghost propagating on the de Sitter brane, in contrast to the Minkowski brane case analysed by CGP. We discuss the implication of this ghost for the …
The propagators of the Faddeev-Popov (FP) ghosts for Yang-Mills theories and perturbative quantum gravity in the covariant gauge are infrared (IR) divergent in de Sitter spacetime. We point out, however, that the modes responsible for these divergences will not contribute to loop diagrams in computations of time-ordered products in either Yang-Mills theories or perturbative quantum gravity. Therefore we propose that the IR divergent FP-ghost propagator should be regularized by a small mass term that is sent to zero in the end of any perturbative calculations. This proposal is equivalent to usi…
We suggest a class of generally covariant ghost-free nonlocal gravity models generating de Sitter or Anti-de Sitter background with an arbitrary value of the effective cosmological constant and featuring a mechanism of dark matter simulation. These models interpolate between the general relativistic phase on a flat spacetime background and their strongly coupled infrared (Anti)-de Sitter phase with two propagating massless graviton modes.
We describe connected timelike codim-2 extremal surfaces stretching between the future and the past boundaries in the static patch coordinatization of de Sitter space. These are analogous to rotated versions of certain surfaces in the $AdS$ black hole. The existence of these surfaces via the $dS/CFT$ framework suggests the speculation that $dS_4$ is dual to two copies of ghost-like CFTs in a thermofield-double-type entangled state. In studies of entanglement in ghost systems and "ghost-spin" chains, we show that similar entangled states in two copies of ghost-spin ensembles always have positiv…
The propagators for the Faddeev-Popov (FP) ghosts in Yang-Mills theory and perturbative gravity in the covariant gauge are infrared (IR) divergent in de Sitter spacetime. An IR cutoff in the momentum space to regularize these divergences breaks the de Sitter invariance. These IR divergences are due to the spatially constant modes in the Yang-Mills case and the modes proportional to the Killing vectors in the case of perturbative gravity. It has been proposed that these IR divergences can be removed, with the de Sitter invariance preserved, by first regularizing them with an additional mass ter…
We study exact impulsive gravitational waves propagating in anti-de Sitter spacetime in the context of the ghost free infinite derivative gravity. We show that the source-free theory does not admit any AdS wave solutions other than that of Einstein's general relativity. The situation is significantly different in the presence of sources. We construct impulsive-wave solutions of the infinite derivative gravity generated by massless particles and linear sources in four and three dimensions. The singularities corresponding to distributional curvature at the locations of the sources get smeared by…
We explore Chern-Simons theories coupled to fundamental ghost-like matter in the large $N$ limit at 't Hooft coupling $λ$. These theories have been conjectured to be holographically dual to parity-violating, asymptotically dS$_4$ universes with a tower of light higher-spin fields. On $\mathbb{R}^3$, to all orders in large-$N$ perturbation theory, we show that Chern-Simons-ghost theories are related to ordinary Chern-Simons-matter theories by mapping $N \rightarrow - N$ and keeping $λ$ fixed. Consequently, the bosonization duality of ordinary Chern-Simons-matter theories extends to a bosonizati…
It is known that the perturbative instability of tensor excitations in higher derivative gravity may not take place if the initial frequency of the gravitational waves are below the Planck threshold. One can assume that this is a natural requirement if the cosmological background is sufficiently mild, since in this case the situation is qualitatively close to the free gravitational wave in flat space. Here, we explore the opposite situation and consider the effect of a very far from Minkowski radiation-dominated or de Sitter cosmological background with a large Hubble rate, e.g., typical of an…
We study dynamics of Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) spacetime based on the ghost-free bigravity theory. Assuming the coupling parameters guaranteeing the existence of de Sitter space as well as Minkowski spacetime, we find two stable attractors for spacetime with "twin" dust matter fields: One is de Sitter accelerating universe and the other is matter dominated universe. Although a considerable number of initial data leads to de Sitter universe, we also find matter dominated universe or spacetime with a future singularity for some initial data. The cosmic no-hair conjecture does no…
We revisit the problem of the helicity-0 ghost mode of massive graviton in the de Sitter background. In general, the presence of a ghost particle, which has negative energy, drives the vacuum to be unstable through pair production of ghost particles and ordinary particles. In the case that the vacuum state preserves the de Sitter invariance, the number density created by the pair production inevitably diverges due to unsuppressed ultra-violet(UV) contributions. In such cases one can immediately conclude that the model is not viable. However, in the massive gravity theory we cannot construct a …
We present a simple procedure to obtain all de Sitter solutions in the ghost-free massive gravity theory by using the Gordon ansatz. For these solutions the physical metric can be conveniently viewed as describing a hyperboloid in 5D Minkowski space, while the flat reference metric depends on the Stuckelberg field $T(t,r)$ that satisfies the equation $(\partial_t{T})^2-(\partial_r T)^2=1$. This equation has infinitely many solutions, hence there are infinitely many de Sitter vacua with different physical properties. Only the simplest solution with $T=t$ has been previously studied since it is …
It is well known that in de Sitter space the (free) minimally coupled massless scalar field theory does not admit any de Sitter-invariant Hadamard state. Related to this is the fact that the propagator for the massive scalar field corresponding to the de Sitter-invariant vacuum state diverges in the massless limit, with the infrared-divergent term being a constant. Since the Faddeev-Popov ghosts for the covariantly quantized Yang-Mills theory are minimally coupled massless scalar fields, it might appear that de Sitter symmetry would be broken in the ghost sector of Yang-Mills theory in de Sitt…
Stability and Chaotic Dynamics in a Nonlinearly Confined ghost-sector Hamiltonian
School of Astronomy, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM)（基础科学研究所天文学院）；Department of Physics, Shahid Beheshti University（沙希德·贝赫什提大学物理系）
The Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati brane-world model provides a possible approach to address the late-time cosmic acceleration. However, it has subsequently been pointed out that a ghost instability will arise on the self-accelerating branch. Here, we carefully investigate whether this ghost problem could be possibly cured by introducing the Gauss-Bonnet term in the five-dimensional bulk action, a natural generalization to the Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati model. Our analysis is carried out for a background where a de Sitter brane is embedded in an anti-de Sitter bulk. Our result shows that the ghost excit…
The stability of de Sitter spacetime in Horava-Lifshitz theory of gravity with projectability but without detailed balance condition is studied. It is found that, in contrast to the case of the Minkowski background, the spin-0 graviton now is stable for any given $ξ$, and free of ghost for $ξ\le 0$ in the infrared limit, where $ξ$ is the dynamical coupling constant.
We study properties of supergravity theories with non-compact gaugings, and their higher-dimensional interpretations via consistent reductions on the inhomogeneous non-compact hyperboloidal spaces {\cal H}^{p,q}. The gauged supergravities are free of ghosts, despite the non-compactness of the gauge groups. We give a general discussion of the existence of stationary points in the scalar potentials of such supergravities. These are of interest since they can be associated with de Sitter vacuum configurations. We give explicit results for consistent reductions on {\cal H}^{p,q} in various example…
A new representation is found for the action of the recently suggested ghost-free nonlocal gravity models generating de Sitter or Anti-de Sitter background with an arbitrary value of the effective cosmological constant. This representation allows one to extend applications of these models from maximally symmetric to generic Einstein spaces and black hole solutions, but clearly indicates violation of the general relativistic limit in this class of theories, induced by their infrared behavior. It is shown that this limit can be recovered in a special conformal frame of these theories, and their …
We propose a new scenario for early cosmology, where an inflationary de Sitter phase is obtained with a ghost condensate. The transition to radiation dominance is triggered by the ghost itself, without any slow-roll potential. Density perturbations are generated by fluctuations around the ghost condensate and can be reliably computed in the effective field theory. The fluctuations are scale invariant as a consequence of the de Sitter symmetries, however, the size of the perturbations are parametrically different from conventional slow-roll inflation, and the inflation happens at far lower ener…
We present the quantum Yang-Mills theory in the four-dimensional de Sitter ambient space formalism. In accordance with the SU$(3)$ gauge symmetry the interaction Lagrangian is formulated in terms of interacting color charged fields in curved space-time. The gauge-invariant field equations are obtained in an independent coordinate description, and their corresponding color conserved currents are computed. Faddeev-Popov ghost fields are shown to be equivalent to their Minkowski counterparts. We obtain that the free ghost fields are massless minimally coupled scalar fields. The problems of the va…
We study a phenomenological dark energy model which is rooted in the Veneziano ghost of QCD. In this dark energy model, the energy density of dark energy is proportional to Hubble parameter and the proportional coefficient is of the order $Λ^3_{QCD}$, where $Λ_{QCD}$ is the mass scale of QCD. The universe has a de Sitter phase at late time and begins to accelerate at redshift around $z_{acc}\sim0.6$. We also fit this model and give the constraints on model parameters, with current observational data including SnIa, BAO, CMB, BBN and Hubble parameter data. We find that the squared sound speed o…
We study linearized massive gravity on the de Sitter background. With a small-enough graviton mass this may have had relevance to inflation, or the present-day cosmic acceleration. Higuchi has shown that this theory has a ghost as long as the dS curvature exceeds the graviton mass, 2H^2 > m^2; this would entail rapid instabilities. In this work we extend the model and observe that the helicity-0 mode which is a ghost, can be turned into a positive energy state via kinetic mixing with the conformal mode. The latter gets restricted here by the requirement that the Bianchi identities be satisfied…
A class of dynamical dark energy models is constructed through an extended version of fermion fields corresponding to phantom dark ghost spinors, which are spin one half with mass dimension one. We find that if these spinors interact with torsion fields in a homogeneous and isotropic universe, then it does not imply any future dark energy singularity or any abrupt event, though the fermion has a negative kinetic energy. In fact, the equation of state of this dark energy model will asymptotically approach the value $w=-1$ from above without crossing the phantom divide and inducing therefore a d…
A dynamical aspect of quantum gravity on de Sitter spacetime is investigated by holography or the dS/CFT correspondence. We show that de Sitter spacetime emerges from a free Sp(N) vector model by complexifying the ghost fields and flowing them in parallel to the imaginary axis. We confirm that the emergence of de Sitter spacetime is ensured by conformal symmetry. We also compute the quantum corrections to the cosmological constant up to the next-to-leading order of the 1/N expansion in a proposed holographic approach. As a result the sub-leading corrections have the opposite sign to the classi…
We develop a formulation where for an arbitrarily given warp factor, we construct a scalar field action which reproduces the warp factor as a solution of the Einstein equation and field equation corresponding to the action. This formulation could be called as the reconstruction. By using the formulation of the reconstruction, we construct models which have an exact solution describing the domain wall. The shape of the domain wall can be flat, de Sitter space-time, or anti-de Sitter space-time. In the constructed domain wall solutions, there often appears ghost with negative kinetic energy. We …
We present the theory of a supersymmetric ghost condensate coupled to N=1 supergravity. This is accomplished using a general formalism for constructing locally supersymmetric higher-derivative chiral superfield actions. The theory admits a ghost condensate vacuum in de Sitter spacetime. Expanded around this vacuum, the scalar sector of the theory is shown to be ghost-free with no spatial gradient instabilities. By direct calculation, the fermion sector is found to consist of a massless chiral fermion and a massless gravitino. By analyzing the supersymmetry transformations, we find that the chi…
We investigate string-phenomenological questions of Hull's exotic superstring theories with Euclidean strings/branes and multiple times. These are known to be plagued by pathologies like the occurrence of ghosts. On the other hand, these theories exhibit de Sitter solutions. Our special focus lies on the question of the coexistence of such de Sitter solutions and ghost-free brane worlds. To this end, the world-sheet CFT description of Euclidean fundamental strings is generalized to include also the open string/D-brane sector. Demanding that in the "observable" gauge theory sector the gauge fie…
We investigate de Sitter solutions in non-local gravity as well as in non-local gravity with Lagrange constraint multiplier. We examine a condition to avoid a ghost and discuss a screening scenario for a cosmological constant in de Sitter solutions. Furthermore, we explicitly demonstrate that three types of the finite-time future singularities can occur in non-local gravity and explore their properties. In addition, we evaluate the effective equation of state for the universe and show that the late-time accelerating universe may be effectively the quintessence, cosmological constant or phantom…
In Brans-Dicke theory a non-linear self interaction of a scalar field allows a possibility of realizing the late-time cosmic acceleration, while recovering the General Relativistic behavior at early cosmological epochs. We extend this to more general modified gravitational theories in which a de Sitter solution for dark energy exists without using a field potential. We derive a condition for the stability of the de Sitter point and study the background cosmological dynamics of such theories. We also restrict the allowed region of model parameters from the demand for the avoidance of ghosts and…
We investigate the cosmological dynamics of non-minimally coupled scalar field system described by $F(ϕ)R$ coupling with $F(ϕ)=(1-ξϕ^N)R$($N\ge2$) and the field potential, $V(ϕ)=V_0ϕ^n$. We use a generic set of dynamical variables to bring out new asymptotic regimes of the underlying dynamics. However, our dynamical variables miss the most important fixed point$-$ the de Sitter solution. We make use of the original form of system of equations to investigate the issues related to this important solution. In particular, we show that the de-Sitter solution which is a dynamical attractor of the sy…
Motivated by ideas obtained from both ghost condensation and gravitational Higgs mechanism, we attempt to find classical solutions in the unitary gauge in general ghost condensation models. It is shown that depending on the form of scalar fields in an action, there are three kinds of exact solutions, which are (anti-) de Sitter space-time, polynomially expanding universes and flat Minkowski space-time. We briefly comment on gravitational Higgs mechanism in these models where we have massive gravitons of 5 degrees of freedom and 1 unitary scalar field (Nambu-Goldstone boson) after spontaneous s…
In this paper we investigate wormhole and spherically symmetric solutions in 4D gravity plus a matter source consisting of a ghost scalar field with a sine-Gordon potential. For the wormhole solutions we also include the possibility of electric and/or magnetic charges. For both types of solutions we perform a linear stability analysis and show that the wormhole solutions are stable and that when one turns on the electric and/or magnetic field the solution remains stable. The linear stability analysis of the spherically symmetric solutions indicates that they can be stable or unstable depending…
We show that cosmological acceleration, Dark Energy (DE) effect is a consequence of the zero rest mass, conformal non-invariance of gravitons, and 1-loop finiteness of quantum gravity (QG). The effect is due to graviton-ghost condensates arising from the interference of quantum coherent states. The theory is constructed as follows: Faddeev-Popov-De Witt gauged path integral -> factorization of classical and quantum variables -> transition to the 1-loop approximation -> choice of ghost sector, satisfying 1-loop finiteness of the theory off the mass shell. The Bogolyubov-Born-Green-Kirckwood-Yvo…
We discuss how to extract information about the cosmological constant from the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, considered as an eigenvalue of a Sturm-Liouville problem in a de Sitter and Anti-de Sitter background. The equation is approximated to one loop with the help of a variational approach with Gaussian trial wave functionals. A canonical decomposition of modes is used to separate transverse-traceless tensors (graviton) from ghosts and scalar. We show that no ghosts appear in the final evaluation of the cosmological constant. A zeta function regularization is used to handle with divergences. A re…
We construct simple standing wave solutions in a 5D space-time with a ghost scalar field. The nodes of these standing waves are 'islands' of 4D Minkowski space-time. For the 5D model with increasing (decreasing) warp factor there are a finite (infinite) number of nodes and thus Minkowski island-universes having different parameters, such as gravitational and cosmological constants. This feature is similar to the assumptions of the landscape models, which postulate a large number of universes with different parameters. This standing wave solution also provides a new localization mechanism - mat…
We propose a theoretically consistent modification of gravity in the infrared, which is compatible with all current experimental observations. This is an analog of Higgs mechanism in general relativity, and can be thought of as arising from ghost condensation--a background where a scalar field ϕhas a constant velocity, <\dotϕ> = M^2. The ghost condensate is a new kind of fluid that can fill the universe, which has the same equation of state, ρ= -p, as a cosmological constant, and can hence drive de Sitter expansion of the universe. However, unlike a cosmological constant, it is a physical flui…
We provide a general framework for studying the evolution of background and cosmological perturbations in the presence of a vector field $A_μ$ coupled to cold dark matter (CDM). We consider an interacting Lagrangian of the form $Q f(X) T_c$, where $Q$ is a coupling constant, $f$ is an arbitrary function of $X=-A_μA^μ/2$, and $T_c$ is a trace of the CDM energy-momentum tensor. The matter coupling affects the no-ghost condition and sound speed of linear scalar perturbations deep inside the sound horizon, while those of tensor and vector perturbations are not subject to modifications. The existen…
We investigate the unitarity of strings on non-trivial space-time backgrounds based on gauged WZNW models involving SO(n,2), gauging an SO(n,1) subgroup. As geometric coset spaces, these are Anti de Sitter spaces. Our present models are more complicated than the ones considered previously, for example those connected to Hermitian symmetric spaces. In the present case, the time-like field component is not a center of the maximal compact subalgebra, leading to several additional complications. Assuming discrete representations, it will only be possible to consider n even, resulting in odd dimens…
We extend the mimetic cosmology to models containing gauge invariant $p$-forms. The $0$-form case reproduces the well-known results of the mimetic dark matter, the $1$-form corresponds to the gauge field mimetic model while the $2$-form model is the Hodge dual of the $0$-form model in $4$ spacetime dimensions. We study the cosmological applications of the new gauge field mimetic model and show that it generates an energy density component which mimics the roles of spatial curvature. In the presence of the Maxwell term, the model also supports the flat, open and closed de Sitter-like cosmologic…
We investigate the cosmology of interacting spin-2 particles, formulating the multi-gravitational theory in terms of vierbeins and without imposing any Deser-van Nieuwenhuizen-like constraint. The resulting multi-vierbein theory represents a wider class of gravitational theories if compared to the corresponding multi-metric models. Moreover, as opposed to its metric counterpart which in general seems to contain ghosts, it has already been proved to be ghost-free. We outline a discussion about the possible matter couplings and we focus on the study of cosmological scenarios in the case of three…
With an appropriate choice of parameters, a higher derivative theory of gravity can describe a normal massive sector and a ghost massless sector. We show that, when defined on an asymptotically de Sitter spacetime with Dirichlet boundary conditions, such a higher derivative gravity can provide a framework for a unitary theory of massive gravity in four spacetime dimensions. The resulting theory is free not only of higher derivative ghosts but also of the Boulware-Deser mode.
We study the Horndeski vector-tensor theory that leads to second order equations of motion and contains a non-minimally coupled abelian gauge vector field. This theory is remarkably simple and consists of only 2 terms for the vector field, namely: the standard Maxwell kinetic term and a coupling to the dual Riemann tensor. Furthermore, the vector sector respects the U(1) gauge symmetry and the theory contains only one free parameter, M^2, that controls the strength of the non-minimal coupling. We explore the theory in a de Sitter spacetime and study the presence of instabilities and show that …
We study the cosmology of a generalized Galileon field $ϕ$ with five covariant Lagrangians in which $ϕ$ is replaced by general scalar functions $f_{i}(ϕ)$ (i=1,...,5). For these theories, the equations of motion remain at second-order in time derivatives. We restrict the functional forms of $f_{i}(ϕ)$ from the demand to obtain de Sitter solutions responsible for dark energy. There are two possible choices for power-law functions $f_{i}(ϕ)$, depending on whether the coupling $F(ϕ)$ with the Ricci scalar $R$ is independent of $ϕ$ or depends on $ϕ$. The former corresponds to the covariant Galileo…
We analyze the evolution of a homogenous and pressureless ball of dust (or "star") in ghost-free massive gravity on de Sitter spacetime. We find that gravitational collapse does not take place for all parameters of the massive gravity theory. For parameters where it does occur, we find the expression for the location of the apparent horizon where it crosses the surface of the star, indicating the location of the apparent horizon of the vacuum solution at that moment. We determine the Ricci curvature at the boundary of the star and extract the finite correction to the curvature of the apparent …
We show that in any model of non-eternal inflation satisfying the null energy condition, the area of the de Sitter horizon increases by at least one Planck unit in each inflationary e-folding. This observation gives an operational meaning to the finiteness of the entropy S_dS of an inflationary de Sitter space eventually exiting into an asymptotically flat region: the asymptotic observer is never able to measure more than e^(S_dS) independent inflationary modes. This suggests a limitation on the amount of de Sitter space outside the horizon that can be consistently described at the semiclassic…
A class of vector-tensor theories arises naturally in the framework of quadratic gravity in spacetimes with linear vector distortion. Requiring the absence of ghosts for the vector field imposes an interesting condition on the allowed connections with vector distortion: the resulting one-parameter family of connections generalises the usual Weyl geometry with polar torsion. The cosmology of this class of theories is studied, focusing on isotropic solutions wherein the vector field is dominated by the temporal component. De Sitter attractors are found and inhomogeneous perturbations around such…
We study a metric cubic gravity theory considering odd-parity modes of linear inhomogeneous perturbations on a spatially homogeneous Bianchi type I manifold close to the isotropic de Sitter spacetime. We show that in the regime of small anisotropy, the theory possesses new degrees of freedom compared to General Relativity, whose kinetic energy vanishes in the limit of exact isotropy. From the mass dispersion relation we show that such theory always possesses at least one ghost mode as well as a very short-time-scale (compared to the Hubble time) classical tachyonic (or ghost-tachyonic) instabi…
We propose a solution to the longstanding cosmological constant (CC) problem which is based on the fusion of two existing concepts. The first is the suggestion that the proper description of classical gravitational effects is the gauge theory of gravity in which the connection instead of the metric acts as the dynamical variable. The resulting field equation does not then contain the CC term. This removes the connection between the CC and the quantum vacuum energy, and therefore addresses the {\it old} CC problem of why quantum vacuum energy does not gravitate. The CC-equivalent in this approa…
We construct a class of Einstein-vector theories where the vector field couples bilinearly to the curvature polynomials of arbitrary order in such a way that only Riemann tensor rather than its derivative enters the equations of motion. The theories can thus be ghost free. The U(1) gauge symmetry may emerge in the vacuum and also in some weak-field limit. We focus on the two-derivative theory and study a variety of applications. We find that in this theory, the energy-momentum tensor of dark matter provides a position-dependent gauge-violating term to the Maxwell field. We also use the vector …
It is shown that for suitable roots of unity, there exist finite--dimensional unitary representations of $U_q(so(2,3))$ corresponding to all classical one-particle representations with (half)integer spin, with the correct low-energy limit. In the massless case for spin $\geq 1$, a subspace of "pure gauges'' appears which must be factored out, as classically. Unitary many-particle representations are defined, with the same low-energy states as classically. Furthermore, a remarkable element of the center of $U_q(so(2,3))$ is identified which plays the role of the BRST operator, for any spin. The…
We study higher derivative terms associated with scalar field cosmology. We consider a coupling between the scalar field and the geometry inspired by the Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator, given by $α\partial_μ\partial^μϕ\partial_ν\partial^νϕ.$ We investigate the cosmological dynamics in a phase space. For $α>0$, we provide conditions for the stability of de Sitter solutions. In this case the crossing of the phantom divide $w_{DE}=-1$ occurs once; thereafter, the equation of state parameter remains under this line, asymptotically reaching towards the de Sitter solution from below. For $α<0,$ which is …
We review nonsingular static, spherically symmetric solutions of general relativity with a minimally coupled scalar field $ϕ$ as a source. Considered are wormholes and regular black holes without a center, including black universes (black holes with an expanding cosmology beyond the horizon). Such configurations require a "ghost" field with negative kinetic energy, but it may be negative in a restricted (strong-field) region of space and positive outside it ("trapped ghost") thus explaining why no ghosts are observed under usual conditions. Another possible explanation of the same may be a rap…
We introduce a large class of scalar-tensor models with interactions containing the second derivatives of the scalar field but not leading to additional degrees of freedom. These models exhibit peculiar features, such as an essential mixing of scalar and tensor kinetic terms, which we have named kinetic braiding. This braiding causes the scalar stress tensor to deviate from the perfect-fluid form. Cosmology in these models possesses a rich phenomenology, even in the limit where the scalar is an exact Goldstone boson. Generically, there are attractor solutions where the scalar monitors the beha…
