Healthy degenerate theories with higher derivatives

TL;DR

This paper investigates conditions under which higher-derivative theories in classical mechanics avoid Ostrogradsky instability, showing that degeneracy and additional constraints can reduce the equations to second order.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of degeneracy conditions and secondary constraints needed to eliminate Ostrogradsky ghosts in higher-derivative theories.

Findings

Degeneracy of the kinetic matrix removes Ostrogradsky instability for n=1.

Additional constraints are required for n>1 to eliminate ghosts.

Higher-order equations can be reduced to second order under certain conditions.

Abstract

In the context of classical mechanics, we study the conditions under which higher-order derivative theories can evade the so-called Ostrogradsky instability. More precisely, we consider general Lagrangians with second order time derivatives, of the form $L(\ddot\phi^a,\dot\phi^a,\phi^a;\dot q^i,q^i)$ with $a = 1,\cdots, n$ and $i = 1,\cdots, m$. For $n=1$, assuming that the $q^i$'s form a nondegenerate subsystem, we confirm that the degeneracy of the kinetic matrix eliminates the Ostrogradsky instability. The degeneracy implies, in the Hamiltonian formulation of the theory, the existence of a primary constraint, which generates a secondary constraint, thus eliminating the Ostrogradsky ghost. For $n>1$, we show that, in addition to the degeneracy of the kinetic matrix, one needs to impose extra conditions to ensure the presence of a sufficient number of secondary constraints that can eliminate all the Ostrogradsky ghosts. When these conditions that ensure the disappearance of the Ostrogradsky instability are satisfied, we show that the Euler-Lagrange equations, which involve a priori higher order derivatives, can be reduced to a second order system.