Massive gravity: nonlinear instability of the homogeneous and isotropic universe

Understand

We argue that all homogeneous and isotropic solutions in nonlinear massive gravity are unstable.

• For this purpose, we study the propagating modes on a Bianchi type--I manifold.
• We analyze their kinetic terms and dispersion relations as the background manifold approaches the homogeneous and isotropic limit.
• We show that in this limit, at least one ghost always exists and that its frequency tends to vanish for large scales, meaning that it cannot be integrated out from the low energy effective theory.