Generalised Israel Junction Conditions for a Gauss-Bonnet Brane World

TL;DR

This paper derives generalized Israel junction conditions for higher-dimensional spacetimes with Gauss-Bonnet corrections, clarifying previous contradictions in brane world models.

Contribution

It introduces a new derivation of junction conditions by generalizing the Gibbons-Hawking boundary term for Gauss-Bonnet gravity.

Findings

Derived consistent junction conditions for Gauss-Bonnet brane worlds.

Compared new conditions with existing literature, resolving contradictions.

Applied conditions to simple brane models to demonstrate their use.

Abstract

In spacetimes of dimension greater than four it is natural to consider higher order (in R) corrections to the Einstein equations. In this letter generalized Israel junction conditions for a membrane in such a theory are derived. This is achieved by generalising the Gibbons-Hawking boundary term. The junction conditions are applied to simple brane world models, and are compared to the many contradictory results in the literature.