Tackling higher derivative ghosts with the Euclidean path integral

Journal Article · Sun May 15 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.83.103518· OSTI ID:21502561

Fontanini, Michele ^[1]; Trodden, Mark ^[1]

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1. Center for Particle Cosmology, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104 (United States)

An alternative to the effective field theory approach to treat ghosts in higher derivative theories is to attempt to integrate them out via the Euclidean path integral formalism. It has been suggested that this method could provide a consistent framework within which we might tolerate the ghost degrees of freedom that plague, among other theories, the higher derivative gravity models that have been proposed to explain cosmic acceleration. We consider the extension of this idea to treating a class of terms with order six derivatives, and find that for a general term the Euclidean path integral approach works in the most trivial background, Minkowski. Moreover we see that even in de Sitter background, despite some difficulties, it is possible to define a probability distribution for tensorial perturbations of the metric.

• OSTI ID: 21502561
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 83, Issue 10; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.83.103518; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ACCELERATION
DE SITTER GROUP
DE SITTER SPACE
DEGREES OF FREEDOM
DISTRIBUTION
DISTURBANCES
EUCLIDEAN SPACE
FIELD THEORIES
GRAVITATION
METRICS
MINKOWSKI SPACE
PATH INTEGRALS
PERTURBATION THEORY
PROBABILITY
INTEGRALS
LIE GROUPS
MATHEMATICAL SPACE
RIEMANN SPACE
SPACE
SYMMETRY GROUPS