2022/10/10 by Gregory W. Horndeski, Horndeski, Gregory W.
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #Geophysics and Gravity Measurements
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2210.04837
openalex publication_date 2022/10/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In this paper I shall consider field theories in a space of four-dimensions which have field variables consisting of the components of a metric tensor and scalar field. The field equations of these scalar-tensor field theories will be derivable from a variational principle using a Lagrange scalar density which is a concomitant of the field variables and their derivatives of arbitrary, but finite, order. I shall consider biconformal transformations of the field variables, which are conformal transformations which affect both the metric tensor and scalar field. A necessary and sufficient condition will be developed to determine when the Euler-Lagrange tensor densities are biconformally invariant. This condition will be employed to construct all of the second-order biconformally invariant scalar-tensor field theories in a space of four-dimensions. It turns out that the field equations of these theories can be derived from a linear combination of (at most) two second-order Lagrangians, with the coefficients in that linear combination being real constants.