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The particle content of $R^2$ gravity revisited

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arxiv 2407.09598 v1 pith:ZIFJZPC4 submitted 2024-07-12 hep-th gr-qc

classification hep-thgr-qc
keywords gravityminkowskiparticlebackgroundgaugegravitonspectrumtheory
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
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abstract

Studying the spectrum of (pure) $R^2$ gravity on Minkowski background inevitably results into a Catch-22: any consistent interpretation of its particle dynamics dictates that no accidental gauge symmetries emerge, a requirement that cannot be fulfilled when the theory is studied on Minkowski. For the case at hand, there is an emergent gauge redundancy corresponding to a transverse-traceless shift of the graviton. This has detrimental consequences since it empties the spectrum from all particle states. Being an artifact of the linearized approximation on top of Minkowski background, the symmetry does not persist at higher orders and degrees of freedom are reintroduced via interactions, making $R^2$ gravity infinitely strongly-coupled. Provided that the theory is considered on appropriate backgrounds -- for instance de Sitter spacetime -- or is supplemented with the Einstein-Hilbert term, $R^2$ gravity propagates the two usual graviton polarizations plus one additional (massless or massive) scalar field. We explicitly demonstrate that in a fully covariant manner.

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Cited by 4 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

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  3. The particle spectra of parity-violating theories: A less radical approach and an upgrade of PSALTer

    hep-th 2025-06 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

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  4. Progress in Einstein-Cartan gravity

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