Date of Award
2013
Document Type
Honors Thesis (Open Access)
Department
Colby College. Physics and Astronomy Dept.
Advisor(s)
Robert T. Bluhm
Abstract
We examine Fierz and Pauli's work in 1939 of adding a mass term to the Lagrangian for linearized gravity with the form ?? where h is a small perturbation away from flat spacetime and showing that the only value for ? which gives a ghost-free theory with the correct five degrees of freedom expected for a massive spin- 2 particle such as the graviton is ? [1]. We start by rederiving the Lagrangian formulation for classical electrodynamics and giving examples of a ghost. Then we solve the linearized massless gravity equations to show their two degrees of freedom. We perform a Hamiltonian analysis for massless linearized gravity. Then we add the mass term to the Lagrangian, resolve the equations, find five degrees of freedom, and perform a Hamiltonian analysis for massive gravity. We use the equations of motion and the Hamiltonian to show that a ? value of ? is the only value for ? which gives a physical, ghost-free theory.
Keywords
massive gravity, general relativity
Recommended Citation
Seyfarth, Greg, "Massive Gravity Theories" (2013). Honors Theses. Paper 716.https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/honorstheses/716
Multimedia URL
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