Beyond dRGT - a new massive gravity theory?

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new massive gravity theory derived from a disformal transformation of the dRGT action, suggesting it may be ghost-free and extending beyond the traditional dRGT framework.

Contribution

It presents a novel massive gravity model obtained via disformal transformation, relaxing locality assumptions and exploring ghost-free conditions in the decoupling limit.

Findings

Decoupling limit resides within beyond-Horndeski class

Ghosts are absent in the decoupling limit under certain conditions

The theory may be nonlocal, affecting its overall structure

Abstract

It is commonly believed that the dRGT theory is the unique way to describe a massive spin-2 field without ghosts. While dRGT is arguably the most elegant massive gravity theory, it seems that it may not be the unique ghost-free one if one relaxes the assumption of locality. In this work, we derive a new massive gravity theory by using a disformal transformation of the metric tensor in the dRGT action. Its decoupling limit lives inside the class of beyond-Horndeski Lagrangians as long as the transformation of the metric remains purely disformal. This proves the absence of ghosts in this decoupling limit and hints at their absence in the whole theory. One caveat, however, is the possible nonlocal structure of this new theory. Furthermore, we consider a more general case, in which we allow the conformal factor in the disformal transformation to be different from unity, and discuss the absence of ghosts in this decoupling limit.