Strong coupling in Hořava gravity

By studying perturbations about the vacuum, we show that Horava gravity suffers from two different strong coupling problems, extending all the way into the deep infra-red. The first of these is associated with the principle of detailed balance and explains why solutions to General Relativity are typ...

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Main Authors: Charmousis, Christos, Niz, Gustavo, Padilla, Antonio, Saffin, Paul M.
Format: Article
Published: Springer 2009
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/42131/
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author Charmousis, Christos
Niz, Gustavo
Padilla, Antonio
Saffin, Paul M.
author_facet Charmousis, Christos
Niz, Gustavo
Padilla, Antonio
Saffin, Paul M.
author_sort Charmousis, Christos
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description By studying perturbations about the vacuum, we show that Horava gravity suffers from two different strong coupling problems, extending all the way into the deep infra-red. The first of these is associated with the principle of detailed balance and explains why solutions to General Relativity are typically not recovered in models that preserve this structure. The second of these occurs even without detailed balance and is associated with the breaking of diffeomorphism invariance, required for anisotropic scaling in the UV. Since there is a reduced symmetry group there are additional degrees of freedom, which need not decouple in the infra-red. Indeed, we use the Stuckelberg trick to show that one of these extra modes become strongly coupled as the parameters approach their desired infra-red fixed point. Whilst we can evade the first strong coupling problem by breaking detailed balance, we cannot avoid the second, whatever the form of the potential. Therefore the original Horava model, and its "phenomenologically viable" extensions do not have a perturbative General Relativity limit at any scale. Experiments which confirm the perturbative gravitational wave prediction of General Relativity, such as the cumulative shift of the periastron time of binary pulsars, will presumably rule out the theory.
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spelling nottingham-421312020-05-04T16:28:33Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/42131/ Strong coupling in Hořava gravity Charmousis, Christos Niz, Gustavo Padilla, Antonio Saffin, Paul M. By studying perturbations about the vacuum, we show that Horava gravity suffers from two different strong coupling problems, extending all the way into the deep infra-red. The first of these is associated with the principle of detailed balance and explains why solutions to General Relativity are typically not recovered in models that preserve this structure. The second of these occurs even without detailed balance and is associated with the breaking of diffeomorphism invariance, required for anisotropic scaling in the UV. Since there is a reduced symmetry group there are additional degrees of freedom, which need not decouple in the infra-red. Indeed, we use the Stuckelberg trick to show that one of these extra modes become strongly coupled as the parameters approach their desired infra-red fixed point. Whilst we can evade the first strong coupling problem by breaking detailed balance, we cannot avoid the second, whatever the form of the potential. Therefore the original Horava model, and its "phenomenologically viable" extensions do not have a perturbative General Relativity limit at any scale. Experiments which confirm the perturbative gravitational wave prediction of General Relativity, such as the cumulative shift of the periastron time of binary pulsars, will presumably rule out the theory. Springer 2009-08-19 Article PeerReviewed Charmousis, Christos, Niz, Gustavo, Padilla, Antonio and Saffin, Paul M. (2009) Strong coupling in Hořava gravity. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2009 (08). 070. ISSN 1029-8479 http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1126-6708/2009/08/070/meta doi:10.1088/1126-6708/2009/08/070 doi:10.1088/1126-6708/2009/08/070
spellingShingle Charmousis, Christos
Niz, Gustavo
Padilla, Antonio
Saffin, Paul M.
Strong coupling in Hořava gravity
title Strong coupling in Hořava gravity
title_full Strong coupling in Hořava gravity
title_fullStr Strong coupling in Hořava gravity
title_full_unstemmed Strong coupling in Hořava gravity
title_short Strong coupling in Hořava gravity
title_sort strong coupling in hořava gravity
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/42131/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/42131/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/42131/