Dynamical structure of Pure Lovelock gravity

TL;DR

This paper investigates the dynamical structure of Pure Lovelock gravity in higher dimensions, analyzing degrees of freedom and symmetries using Hamiltonian formalism, revealing background-dependent variations in physical degrees of freedom.

Contribution

It provides a Hamiltonian analysis of Pure Lovelock gravity, highlighting how degrees of freedom depend on the background, unlike in Einstein-Hilbert gravity.

Findings

Pure Lovelock gravity has a unique constant curvature vacuum.

The number of degrees of freedom varies with the background.

Charged black hole solutions exist in this theory.

Abstract

We study dynamical structure of Pure Lovelock gravity in spacetime dimensions higher than four using the Hamiltonian formalism. The action consists of cosmological constant and a single higher-order polynomial in the Riemann tensor. Similarly to Einstein-Hilbert action, it possesses a unique constant curvature vacuum and charged black hole solutions. We analyze physical degrees of freedom and local symmetries in this theory. In contrast to the Einstein-Hilbert case, a number of degrees of freedom depends on the background and can vary from zero to the maximal value carried by the Lovelock theory.