Varying the Horndeski Lagrangian within the Palatini approach

DOI10.1088/1475-7516/2020/01/044zbMATH Open1489.83034arXiv1906.07607OpenAlexW3104729118MaRDI QIDQ5067828FDOQ5067828

Authors: Thomas Helpin, Mikhail S. Volkov 

Publication date: 4 April 2022

Published in: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We analyse what happens when the Horndeski Lagrangian is varied within the Palatini approach by considering the metric and connection as independent variables. Assuming the connection to be torsionless, there can be infinitely many metric-affine versions $L_{mP}$ of the original Lagrangian which differ from each other by terms proportional to the non-metricity tensor. After integrating out the connection, each $L_{mP}$ defines a metric theory, which can either belong to the original Horndeski family, or it can be of a more general DHOST type, or it shows the Ostrogradsky ghost. We analyse in detail the subclass of the theory for which the equations are linear in the connection and find that its metric-affine version is ghost-free. We present a detailed classifications of homogeneous and isotropic cosmologies in these theories. Taking into consideration other pieces of the Horndeski Lagrangian which are non-linear in the connection leads to more complex metric-affine theories which generically show the ghost. In some special cases the ghost can be removed by carefully adjusting the non-metricity contribution, but it is unclear if this is always possible. Therefore, the metric-affine generalisations of the Horndeski theory can be ghost-free, but not all of them are ghost-free, neither are they the only metric-affine theories for a gravity-coupled scalar field which can be ghost-free.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.07607

zbMATH Keywords

modified gravitycosmology of theories beyond the SMdark energy theory

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Special connections and metrics on vector bundles (Hermite-Einstein, Yang-Mills) (53C07) Differential geometry of homogeneous manifolds (53C30) Lagrangian formalism and Hamiltonian formalism in mechanics of particles and systems (70S05) Unified quantum theories (81V22) Relativistic gravitational theories other than Einstein's, including asymmetric field theories (83D05) Relativistic cosmology (83F05) Affine spaces (automorphisms, embeddings, exotic structures, cancellation problem) (14R10) Isotropic turbulence; homogeneous turbulence (76F05) Dark matter and dark energy (83C56)

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Cited In (8)

• Phantom attractors in kinetic gravity braiding theories: a dynamical system approach
• Ghost from constraints: a generalization of Ostrogradsky theorem
• Hamiltonian analysis of metric-affine-\(R^2\) theory
• Healthy Horndeski cosmologies with torsion
• Improving data-driven model-independent reconstructions and updated constraints on dark energy models from Horndeski cosmology
• Scalar fields with derivative coupling to curvature in the Palatini and the metric formulation
• Cosmological perturbations in Palatini formalism
• Quintessence in the Weyl-Gauss-Bonnet model

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