A note on harmonic gauge(s) in massive gravity

Journal article

We consider the harmonic gauge condition in linearized gravity, seen as a gauge theory for a symmetric tensor field. Once the harmonic gauge condition is implemented, as customary, according to the Faddeev-Popov procedure, the gauge fixed action still depends on one gauge parameter. Consequently, the harmonic gauge appears to be a class of conditions, rather than a particular one. This allows to give a physical motivation for the covariant harmonic gauge(s), which emerges when the gravitational perturbation is given a mass term. In fact, for a particular choice of harmonic gauge, we find a theory of linearized massive gravity displaying five degrees of freedom, as it should, and which is not affected by the vDVZ discontinuity, differently from what happens in the standard Fierz-Pauli theory.

Authors: Gambuti, G; Maggiore, N

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Journal: Physics Letters B
• Volume: 807
• Issue: 10 August 2020
• Article number: 135530
• Publication date: 2020-06-01
• Acceptance date: 2020-05-29
• DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2020.135530
• ISSN: 0370-2693
• Language: English
• Keywords: Faddeev-Popov procedure; linearized massive gravity; FFR; vDVZ discontinuity; gauge field theories