Canonical Structure of Higher Derivative Gravity in 3D

We give an explicitly gauge invariant canonical analysis of linearized quadratic gravity theories in three dimensions for both flat and de-Sitter backgrounds. In flat backgrounds, we also study the effects of gravitational Chern-Simons term, and include the sources, compute the weak field limit as well as scattering between spinning massive particles.Comment: 14 pages, references added, version to appear in PR

Born-Infeld Gravity with a Unique Vacuum and a Massless Graviton

We construct an n-dimensional Born-Infeld type gravity theory that has the same properties as Einstein's gravity in terms of the vacuum and particle content: Namely, the theory has a unique viable vacuum (maximally symmetric solution) and a single massless unitary spin-2 graviton about this vacuum. The BI gravity, in some sense, is the most natural, minimal generalization of Einstein's gravity with a better UV behavior, and hence, is a potentially viable proposal for low energy quantum gravity. The Gauss-Bonnet combination plays a non-trivial role in the construction of the theory. As an extreme example, we consider the infinite dimensional limit where an interesting exponential gravity arises.Comment: 27 pages, 2 figures. v2: Added discussion

Born-Infeld-Horava gravity

We define various Born-Infeld gravity theories in 3+1 dimensions which reduce to Horava's model at the quadratic level in small curvature expansion. In their exact forms, our actions provide z->(infinity) extensions of Horava's gravity, but when small curvature expansion is used, they reproduce finite z models, including some half-integer ones.Comment: 7 pages, typo corrected, matches the published versio

Spin-Spin Interactions in Massive Gravity and Higher Derivative Gravity Theories

We show that, in the weak field limit, at large separations, in sharp contrast to General Relativity (GR), all massive gravity theories predict distance-dependent spin alignments for spinning objects. For all separations GR requires anti-parallel spin orientations with spins pointing along the line joining the sources. Hence total spin is minimized in GR. On the other hand, while massive gravity at small separations ($m_gr \le1.62$) gives the same result as GR, for large separations ($m_gr>1.62$) the spins become parallel to each other and perpendicular to the line joining the objects. Namely, the potential energy is minimized when the total spin is maximized in massive gravity for large separations. We also compute the spin-spin interactions in quadratic gravity theories and find that while at large separations GR result is intact, at small separations, spins become perpendicular to the line joining sources and anti-parallel to each other.Comment: 7 pages, title has changed, derivations of the results incorporated to the Appendix. Matches the published version in Physics Letters

Massive Higher Derivative Gravity in D-dimensional Anti-de Sitter Spacetimes

We find the propagator and calculate the tree level scattering amplitude between two covariantly conserved sources in an Anti-de Sitter background for the most general D-dimensional quadratic, four-derivative, gravity with a Pauli-Fierz mass. We also calculate the Newtonian potential for various limits of the theory in flat space. We show how the recently introduced three dimensional New Massive Gravity is uniquely singled out among higher derivative models as a (tree level) unitary model and that its Newtonian limit is equivalent to that of the usual massive gravity in flat space.Comment: 9 pages, references added, to appear in PR

Born-Infeld Gravity with a Massless Graviton in Four Dimensions

We construct Born-Infeld (BI) type gravity theories which describe tree-level unitary (non-ghost and non-tachyonic) massless spin-2 modes around their maximally symmetric vacua in four dimensions. Building unitary BI actions around flat vacuum is straightforward; but, this is a complicated task around (anti)-de Sitter backgrounds. In this work, we solve the issue and give details of constructing perturbatively viable determinantal BI theories. It is interesting that the Gauss-Bonnet combination, which is a total derivative in four dimensions, plays an important role in the construction of viable BI theories.Comment: 46 pages, references adde

AdS Waves as Exact Solutions to Quadratic Gravity

We give an exact solution of the quadratic gravity in D dimensions. The solution is a plane fronted wave metric with a cosmological constant. This metric solves not only the full quadratic gravity field equations but also the linearized ones which include the linearized equations of the recently found critical gravity. A subset of the solutions change the asymptotic structure of the anti-de Sitter space due to their logarithmic behavior.Comment: 11 pages, references added, version to appear in Phys. Rev.

All unitary cubic curvature gravities in D dimensions

We construct all the unitary cubic curvature gravity theories built on the contractions of the Riemann tensor in D -dimensional (anti)-de Sitter spacetimes. Our construction is based on finding the equivalent quadratic action for the general cubic curvature theory and imposing ghost and tachyon freedom, which greatly simplifies the highly complicated problem of finding the propagator of cubic curvature theories in constant curvature backgrounds. To carry out the procedure we have also classified all the unitary quadratic models. We use our general results to study the recently found cubic curvature theories using different techniques and the string generated cubic curvature gravity model. We also study the scattering in critical gravity and give its cubic curvature extensions.Comment: 24 pages, 1 figure, v2: A subsection on cubic curvature extensions of critical gravity is added, v3: The part regarding critical gravity is revised. Version to appear in Class. Quant. Gra

Application of artificial neural networks to height transformation

Dvije su osnovne komponente vertikalnog pozicioniranja: visina i odgovarajuća referentna površina. Definicija visine se mijenja u skladu s odabranom referentnom površinom. Satelitski sustavi globalne navigacije (Global Navigation Satellite Systems - GNSS) daju elipsoidne visine razmjerne površini geodetski referentnog elipsoida. Međutim, mnoge aplikacije zahtijevaju visine koje su povezane s fizikalno značajnom površinom kao što je geoid. Takve visine su u obliku ortometrijskih (ili normalnih) visina. Veza između elipsoidnih i ortometrijskih visina je visina geoida iznad referentnog elipsoida, obično nazivana valovitim kretanjem geoida. Dva su osnovna pristupa kod pretvaranja elipsoidnih u ortometrijske visine: gravimetrijski model geoida i interpolacija između geometrijski deriviranih valovitih kretanja geoida gdje su GNSS mjerenja locirana uz nivelacijske točke. U ovom se radu istražuje korisnost umjetnih neuronskih mreža s unatražnim rasprostiranjem kao alternativni alat za transformaciju visine.The vertical positioning has two indispensable constituents: the height and the relevant reference surface. The definition of the height differs according to the appointed reference surface. Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) ensure ellipsoidal heights relative to a geodetic reference ellipsoid surface. However, many field applications require heights that are related to a physically meaningful surface (e.g. the geoid). Such physically meaningful heights often provided in terms of orthometric heights. The geoid undulation is the relation between the ellipsoidal and orthometric heights. The ellipsoidal heights can be transformed to orthometric heights via two principal approaches: a gravimetric geoid model, and geometrical interpolation between geoid undulations where GNSS observations have been collocated with benchmarks. The purpose of this study is investigating the applicability of a back propagation artificial neural network as a height transformation tool