Non Pauli-Fierz Massive Gravitons

TL;DR

This paper explores Lorentz invariant theories of massive gravitons, demonstrating that consistent models can violate the Pauli-Fierz structure without introducing ghosts, especially relevant for higher-dimensional DGP models.

Contribution

It shows the existence of consistent Lorentz invariant massive graviton theories that violate Pauli-Fierz structure without ghosts, expanding the theoretical landscape.

Findings

Violations of Pauli-Fierz structure can be ghost-free at high energies.

Resonance gravitons can avoid ghosts despite non-Pauli-Fierz mass terms.

Supports higher-dimensional DGP models requiring such mass terms.

Abstract

We study general Lorentz invariant theories of massive gravitons. We show that, contrary to the standard lore, there exist consistent theories where the graviton mass term violates Pauli-Fierz structure. For theories where the graviton is a resonance this does not imply the existence of a scalar ghost if the deviation from Pauli-Fierz becomes sufficiently small at high energies. These types of mass terms are required by any consistent realization of the DGP model in higher dimension.