On non-perturbative analysis of massive and bimetric gravity

This is my contribution to Proceedings of II Russian-Spanish Congress on Particle and Nuclear Physics at all Scales and Cosmology, Saint Petersburg, Russia, October 1 - 4, 2013. We give a brief overview of the ghost-free massive and bimetric gravity emphasising its non-perturbative aspects and ADM approach to calculating the precise number of degrees of freedom. To the standard material, we add some thoughts concerning existence and uniqueness problems of matrix square roots in non-perturbative metric formulations of massive gravity.Comment: 5 pages; prepared for the Proceedings of II Russian-Spanish Congress on Particle and Nuclear Physics at all Scales and Cosmolog

Smooth horizons and quantum ripples

Black Holes are unique objects which allow for meaningful theoretical studies of strong gravity and even quantum gravity effects. An infalling and a distant observer would have very different views on the structure of the world. However, a careful analysis has shown that it entails no genuine contradictions for physics, and the paradigm of observer complementarity has been coined. Recently this picture was put into doubt. In particular, it was argued that in old Black Holes a firewall must form in order to protect the basic principles of quantum mechanics. This AMPS paradox has already been discussed in a vast number of papers with different attitudes and conclusions. Here we want to argue that a possible source of confusion is neglection of quantum gravity effects. Contrary to widespread perception, it does not necessarily mean that effective field theory is inapplicable in rather smooth neighbourhoods of large Black Hole horizons. The real offender might be an attempt to consistently use it over the huge distances from the near-horizon zone of old Black Holes to the early radiation. We give simple estimates to support this viewpoint and show how the Page time and (somewhat more speculative) scrambling time do appear.Comment: 4 pages; minor changes, a few references adde

Beyond dRGT as Mimetic Massive

An interesting proposal has recently been made to extend massive gravity models beyond dRGT by a disformal transformation of the metric. In this Letter we want to note that it can be viewed as a mimetic extension of dRGT gravity which enormously simplifies the Hamiltonian analysis. In particular, pure gravity sector is equivalent to the usual dRGT gravity coupled to a constrained scalar field. And we also give some comments about possible matter couplings.Comment: 7 pages; minor changes; final versio