Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Born-Infeld New Massive Gravity (BINMG) is an all-order curvature extension of New Massive Gravity in three dimensions, whose linearized spectrum around its unique maximally symmetric vacuum contains the two polarizations of a massive spin-two field. Whether an additional scalar degree of freedom appears in the full nonlinear theory has remained an open question. We perform a nonlinear canonical analysis of BINMG using its auxiliary-metric formulation. On the regular branch connected to the maximally symmetric vacuum, the Dirac algorithm yields three first-class diffeomorphism constraints and a second-class pair of scalar constraints. The resulting count gives exactly two local degrees of freedom per spatial point. Thus, nonlinear BINMG propagates no additional Boulware-Deser-type scalar mode on this branch.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Authors: Koc, Zeynep Su, Tekin, Bayram
Institution: Bilkent University
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Award: G2023507843
OpenAlex ID: W7213158848