Calmet, Xavier, Capozziello, Salvatore and Pryer, Daniel (2017) Gravitational effective action at second order in curvature and gravitational waves. European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields, 77 (9). ISSN 1434-6044

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Abstract

We consider the full effective theory for quantum gravity at second order in curvature including non-local terms. We show that the theory contains two new degrees of free- dom beyond the massless graviton: namely a massive spin-2 ghost and a massive scalar field. Furthermore, we show that it is impossible to fine-tune the parameters of the effective action to eliminate completely the classical spin-2 ghost because of the non- local terms in the effective action. Being a classical Field, it is not clear anyway that this ghost is problematic. It simply implies a repulsive contribution to Newton's potential. We then consider how to extract the parameters of the effective action and show that it is possible to measure, at least in principle, the parameters of the local terms independently of each other using a combination of observations of gravitational waves and measurements performed by pendulum type experiments searching for deviations of Newton's potential.

Item Type:	Article
Schools and Departments:	School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences > Physics and Astronomy
Research Centres and Groups:	Theoretical Particle Physics Research Group
Subjects:	Q Science > QC Physics
Related URLs:	https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.08253
Depositing User:	Billy Wichaidit
Date Deposited:	31 Aug 2017 11:01
Last Modified:	19 Oct 2017 09:19
URI:	http://srodev.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/69943

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