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Main Author: Vale, Públio Rwany B. R. do
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.07508
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author Vale, Públio Rwany B. R. do
author_facet Vale, Públio Rwany B. R. do
contents At the quantum level, the polynomial models of gravity with six and eight derivatives are superrenormalizable, but suffer from higher derivative ghost and/or tachyonic ghost states. On the other hand, these models may have advantages in the control of negative effects of ghosts, compared to the more common fourth-derivative theory. We explore the positiveness of energy of the individual plane wave solutions in the general models with six and eight derivatives. Different from the fourth-order gravity, the part of the energy which may be seen as the leading one in the UV, is positively defined in the tensor sector. We extend this investigation to the scalar sectors of the free theory.
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publishDate 2025
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spellingShingle Conditions for positivity of energy in superrenormalizable polynomial gravity
Vale, Públio Rwany B. R. do
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Theory
At the quantum level, the polynomial models of gravity with six and eight derivatives are superrenormalizable, but suffer from higher derivative ghost and/or tachyonic ghost states. On the other hand, these models may have advantages in the control of negative effects of ghosts, compared to the more common fourth-derivative theory. We explore the positiveness of energy of the individual plane wave solutions in the general models with six and eight derivatives. Different from the fourth-order gravity, the part of the energy which may be seen as the leading one in the UV, is positively defined in the tensor sector. We extend this investigation to the scalar sectors of the free theory.
title Conditions for positivity of energy in superrenormalizable polynomial gravity
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.07508