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arXiv · 1911.06697

Nonlocal gravity with worldline inversion symmetry

Steven Abel·Luca Buoninfante·Anupam Mazumdar
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Abstract

We construct a quadratic curvature theory of gravity whose graviton propagator around the Minkowski background respects wordline inversion symmetry, the particle approximation to modular invariance in string theory. This symmetry automatically yields a corresponding gravitational theory that is nonlocal, with the action containing infinite order differential operators. As a consequence, despite being a higher order derivative theory, it is ghost-free and has no degrees of freedom besides the massless spin-$2$ graviton of Einstein's general relativity. By working in the linearised regime we show that the point-like singularities that afflict the (local) Einstein's theory are smeared out.

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Steven Abel, Luca Buoninfante, Anupam Mazumdar. 2019-11-15. Nonlocal gravity with worldline inversion symmetry. https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep01(2020)003

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