2001/04/30 by M. A. Clayton, Clayton, M. A.
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Differential Geometry Research #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.gr-qc/0104103
15 pages, uses ams style files
arxiv created 2001/04/30 · openalex publication_date 2001/04/30 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We show that that vector field-based models of the ether generically do not have a Hamiltonian that is bounded from below in a flat spacetime. We also demonstrate that these models possess multiple light cones in flat or curved spacetime, and that the non-lightlike characteristic is associated with an ether degree of freedom that will tend to form shocks. Since the field equations (and propagation speed) of this mode is singular when the timelike component of the ether vector field vanishes, we demonstrate that linearized analyses about such configurations cannot be trusted to produce robust approximations to the theory.