Serendipitous discoveries in nonlocal gravity theory

TL;DR

This paper introduces a class of nonlocal gravity models that unify flat-space GR and (A)dS backgrounds, potentially explaining cosmic acceleration and dark matter phenomena through infrared modifications.

Contribution

It formulates a covariant nonlocal gravity theory with stable (A)dS vacua and derives causal equations of motion, revealing new infrared gravitational effects.

Findings

The theory admits stable flat and (A)dS vacua with vanishing on-shell action.

Massless gravitons propagate with two polarizations, similar to Einstein gravity.

Effective gravitational coupling can differ significantly from Newton's constant in the infrared.

Abstract

We present a class of generally covariant nonlocal gravity models which have a flat-space general relativistic (GR) limit and also possess a stable de Sitter (dS) or Anti-de Sitter (AdS) background with an arbitrary value of its cosmological constant. The nonlocal action of the theory is formulated in the Euclidean signature spacetime and is understood as an approximation to the quantum effective action (generating functional of one-particle irreducible diagrams) originating from fundamental quantum gravity theory. Using the known relation between the Schwinger-Keldysh technique for quantum expectation values and the Euclidean quantum field theory we derive from this action the {\em causal} effective equations of motion for mean value of the metric field in the physical Lorentzian-signature spacetime. Thus we show that the (A)dS background of the theory carries as free propagating modes massless gravitons having two polarizations identical to those of the Einstein theory with a cosmological term. The on-shell action of the theory is vanishing both for the flat-space and (A)dS backgrounds which play the role of stable vacua underlying respectively the ultraviolet and infrared phases of the theory. We also obtain linearized gravitational potentials of compact matter sources and show that in the infrared (A)dS phase their effective gravitational coupling $G_{\rm eff}$ can be essentially different from the Newton gravitational constant $G_N$ of the short-distance GR phase. When $G_{\rm eff}\gg G_N$ the (A)dS phase can be regarded as a strongly coupled infrared modification of Einstein theory not only describing the dark energy mechanism of cosmic acceleration but also simulating the dark matter phenomenon by enhanced gravitational attraction at long distances.