From k-essence to generalised Galileons

TL;DR

This paper classifies the most general scalar field theories with second order equations of motion, extending k-essence and Galileons to curved spacetime and revealing new theoretical connections.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive construction of scalar theories with second order equations, unifying and extending previous models like k-essence and Galileons.

Findings

Derived the most general second order scalar theories in flat and curved spacetime.

Connected the construction to Euler hierarchies and shift symmetry.

Presented the covariantized conformal Galileon as an application.

Abstract

We determine the most general scalar field theories which have an action that depends on derivatives of order two or less, and have equations of motion that stay second order and lower on flat space-time. We show that those theories can all be obtained from linear combinations of Lagrangians made by multiplying a particular form of the Galileon Lagrangian by an arbitrary scalar function of the scalar field and its first derivatives. We also obtain curved space-time extensions of those theories which have second order field equations for both the metric and the scalar field. This provide the most general extension, under the condition that field equations stay second order, of k-essence, Galileons, k-Mouflage as well as of the kinetically braided scalars. It also gives the most general action for a scalar classicalizer, which has second order field equations. We discuss the relation between our construction and the Euler hierachies of Fairlie et al, showing in particular that Euler hierachies allow one to obtain the most general theory when the latter is shift symmetric. As a simple application of our formalism, we give the covariantized version of the conformal Galileon.