Phases of massive gravity

TL;DR

This paper explores the parameter space of Lorentz-violating massive gravity, identifying conditions for consistent theories free of instabilities, and discusses potential cosmological implications of massive gravitons.

Contribution

It systematically analyzes the general Lorentz-violating graviton mass terms, finding new stable regions and UV-insensitive models, extending previous theories like ghost condensate.

Findings

Certain parameter regions yield stable, ghost-free massive gravity theories.

Identified new UV-insensitive models with residual symmetries.

Massive graviton effects could significantly influence cosmology and structure formation.

Abstract

We systematically study the most general Lorentz-violating graviton mass invariant under three-dimensional Eucledian group using the explicitly covariant language. We find that at general values of mass parameters the massive graviton has six propagating degrees of freedom, and some of them are ghosts or lead to rapid classical instabilities. However, there is a number of different regions in the mass parameter space where massive gravity can be described by a consistent low-energy effective theory with cutoff $\sim\sqrt{mM_{Pl}}$ free of rapid instabilities and vDVZ discontinuity. Each of these regions is characterized by certain fine-tuning relations between mass parameters, generalizing the Fierz--Pauli condition. In some cases the required fine-tunings are consequences of the existence of the subgroups of the diffeomorphism group that are left unbroken by the graviton mass. We found two new cases, when the resulting theories have a property of UV insensitivity, i.e. remain well behaved after inclusion of arbitrary higher dimension operators without assuming any fine-tunings among the coefficients of these operators, besides those enforced by the symmetries. These theories can be thought of as generalizations of the ghost condensate model with a smaller residual symmetry group. We briefly discuss what kind of cosmology can one expect in massive gravity and argue that the allowed values of the graviton mass may be quite large, affecting growth of primordial perturbations, structure formation and, perhaps, enhancing the backreaction of inhomogeneities on the expansion rate of the Universe.