2017/03/31 by Jamil Ahmed, Robie A. Hennigar, Robert B. Mann +1 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #hep-th #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/jhep05(2017)134
46 pages, 1 figure. Discussion of black branes added to section 5
arxiv created 2017/04/07 · arxiv updated 2017/08/23
We construct the quartic version of generalized quasi-topological gravity, which was recently constructed to cubic order in arXiv: 1703.01631. This class of theories includes Lovelock gravity and a known form of quartic quasi-topological gravity as special cases and possess a number of remarkable properties: (i) In vacuum, or in the presence of suitable matter, there is a single independent field equation which is a total derivative. (ii) At the linearized level, the equations of motion on a maximally symmetric background are second order, coinciding with the linearized Einstein equations up to a redefinition of Newton's constant. Therefore, these theories propagate only the massless, transverse graviton on a maximally symmetric background. (iii) While the Lovelock and quasi-topological terms are trivial in four dimensions, there exist four new generalized quasi-topological terms (the quartet) that are nontrivial, leading to interesting higher curvature theories in d ≥ 4 dimensions that appear well suited for holographic study. We construct four dimensional black hole solutions to the theory and study their properties. A study of black brane solutions in arbitrary dimensions reveals that these solutions are modified from the `universal' properties these solutions have. This result may lead to interesting consequences for the dual CFTs.