Universally Coupled Massive Gravity, III: dRGT-Maheshwari Pure Spin-2, Ogievetsky-Polubarinov and Arbitrary Mass Terms
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Authors
Publication Date
2015-12-23Journal Title
Annals of Physics
ISSN
0003-4916
Publisher
Elsevier
Volume
365
Pages
73-90
Language
English
Type
Article
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Pitts, B. (2015). Universally Coupled Massive Gravity, III: dRGT-Maheshwari Pure Spin-2, Ogievetsky-Polubarinov and Arbitrary Mass Terms. Annals of Physics, 365 73-90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aop.2015.12.002
Abstract
Einstein’s equations were derived for a free massless spin-2 field using universal coupling in the 1950-70s by various authors; total stressenergy including gravity’s served as a source for linear free field equations. A massive variant was likewise derived in the late 1960s by Freund, Maheshwari and Schonberg, and thought to be unique. How broad is universal coupling? In the last decade four 1-parameter families of massive spin-2 theories (contravariant, covariant, tetrad, and cotetrad of almost any density weights) have been derived using universal coupling. The (co)tetrad derivations included 2 of the 3 pure spin-2 theories due to de Rham, Gabadadze, and Tolley; those two theories first appeared in the 2-parameter Ogievetsky-Polubarinov family (1965), which developed the symmetric square root of the metric as a nonlinear group realization. One of the two theories was identified as pure spin-2 by Maheshwari in 1971-2, thus evading the BoulwareDeser-Tyutin-Fradkin ghost by the time it was announced. Unlike the previous 4 families, this paper permits nonlinear field redefinitions to build the effective metric. By not insisting in advance on knowing the observable significance of the graviton potential to all orders, one finds that an arbitrary graviton mass term can be derived using universal coupling. The arbitrariness of a universally coupled mass/selfinteraction term contrasts sharply with the uniqueness of the Einstein kinetic term. One might have hoped to use universal coupling as a tie-breaking criterion for choosing among theories that are equally satisfactory on more crucial grounds (such as lacking ghosts and having a smooth massless limit). But the ubiquity of universal coupling implies that the criterion doesn’t favor any particular theories among those with the Einstein kinetic term.
Keywords
massive graviton, universal coupling, dRGT, spin 2, Vainshtein mechanism, undiscovered public knowledge, counterfactual history
Sponsorship
I thank Stanley Deser, Andrew Tolley and Fawad Hassan for discussing Maheshwari’s work, Alex Blum for acquainting me with the Bronstein paper and the Seligman (DeWitt) dissertation, and Jeremy Butterfield for discussion. This work was funded by the John Templeton Foundation, grant #38761.
Funder references
John Templeton Foundation (38761)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aop.2015.12.002
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/253121
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 UK: England & Wales
Licence URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/uk/
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