Higher Derivative Theories for Interacting Massless Gravitons in Minkowski Spacetime

Understand

We study a novel class of higher derivative theories for interacting massless gravitons in Minkowski spacetime.

• These theories were first discussed by Wald decades ago, and are characterized by scattering amplitudes essentially different from general relativity and many of its modifications.
• We discuss various aspects of these higher derivative theories, including the Lagrangian construction, violation of asymptotic causality, scattering amplitudes, non-renormalization, and possible implications on emergent gravitons from condensed matter systems.