Jackiw-Teitelboim Gravity Generates Horndeski via Disformal Transformations

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the broad class of two-dimensional dilaton gravity theories, including Horndeski and Kinetic Gravity Braiding, can be derived from Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity through disformal transformations, preserving degrees of freedom.

Contribution

It establishes that the most general second-order 2D dilaton gravity theories can be generated from JT gravity via disformal transformations, showing the closure of this family under such transformations.

Findings

JT gravity maps to Horndeski and KGB theories via disformal transformations

The general 2D dilaton gravity family is closed under disformal transformations

Disformal transformations do not alter degrees of freedom in these theories

Abstract

We show that the most general two-dimensional dilaton gravity theory with second-order field equations, which includes Horndeski and Kinetic Gravity Braiding families, may be obtained from the Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) gravity through a general disformal transformation, up to boundary terms. This map does not change the degrees of freedom if the invertible transformation is applied. We also show that this most general family of theories is closed under generic disformal transformations.