Non-linear massive gravity as a gravitational σ-model

¹ Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Tokyo University of Science - 1-3, Kagurazaka, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-8601, Japan
² State Key Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Science Beijing 100190, PRC

Received: 31 March 2016
Accepted: 17 August 2016

Abstract

We show the direct analogy between the ghost-free non-linear formulation of massive gravity and the standard σ-models well understood in the literature. This issue explains why there are two non-trivial family of solutions for the spherically symmetric case inside the non-linear massive gravity formulations with two free parameters α and β. In general, the case has a single physical vacuum state. On the other hand, the case contains a natural vacuum degeneracy. This is in perfect analogy with the σ-model for scalar fields where depending on the values taken by the parameters of the theory the vacuum can be single or degenerate.