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# RS1 Cosmology as Brane Dynamics in an AdS/Schwarzschild Bulk

## I Introduction

The cosmology of Randall-Sundrum (RS) rsa ; rsb  models is of great interest for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that these models allow us to understand some long-standing problems of particle physics, most notably the hierarchy problem of mass scales.

Kraus kraus , (see also cosmologies ; chambreall ; others ) has made the interesting observation that for the so-called RS2 models rsb , brane cosmology can be found by solving the Israel junction conditions israel  for a domain wall moving in an AdS/Schwarzschild (AdSS) bulk geometry, which, by Birkhoff’s theorem in five dimensions, is the unique spherically symmetric solution to the bulk Einstein equations with a bulk cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$.

While the RS2 alternative to compactification is extremely interesting from many points of view, such as the AdS/CFT correspondence adscft , it could be argued that from a particle physics perspective, RS1 geometries rsa  are more useful, allowing as they do for solutions to the hierarchy problem. The cosmology of RS1 geometries has been studied extensively in the literature langlois ; csaki1 ; csaki2 ; cline ; ira , and a number of interesting results have been found. The main difference between RS1 and RS2 cosmologies is that the existence of two branes (the TeV and Planck branes) in the RS1 case allows the inter-brane separation to become a dynamical degree of freedom, the so-called radion. Depending on whether or not the radion has been stabilized in some way, such as with the Goldberger-Wise mechanism (GW) gw  or in some other way, the cosmological consequences and even consistency of RS1 models can be quite different.

Our purpose in this work is to treat the cosmology of RS1 models using the Kraus approach. That is to say, we consider the two branes to be moving in an AdSS bulk geometry and ask once again what is happening to the intrinsic brane geometry as specified through the Israel conditions. There are (at least!) two reasons for doing this. One is that this will allow us to understand some of the previously known results from a different perspective. In particular, in this approach, there is no radion mode in the bulk metric! The radion appears as the geodesic relative distance between the branes. This naturally leads us to ask how the equation of motion for the radion gets generated, and in particular, how the GW mechanism gets implemented. There should also be some differences between the so-called Gaussian normal coordinates used in most of the works on RS1 cosmology and this method, since in the latter, the bulk is static, at least to a first approximation; all the cosmological evolution occurs on the branes. This approach also allows the role of the GW mechanism in producing an acceptable cosmology to be seen in more detail than for the effective action used in the Gaussian normal formulation. Finally, we can make contact with the ideas of holography holo  by placing a horizon in the bulk geometry and seeing how that influences the cosmology and stabilization mechanisms.

Section II provides the set-up for our calculation. We describe the bulk geometry and use it to compute the geodesic distance between the branes. Doing this, it becomes clear that there is an issue in how to define what we mean by the hierarchy of scales between the branes, which was the point of the RS1 scenario rsa . We discuss this in some detail and argue that when the bulk geometry has a horizon, the inter-brane separation does not set the hierarchy, at least not in as direct a manner as when the horizon is absent.

In section III we solve the junction conditions and find the cosmology on the branes. We write down the bulk and boundary actions, the equations of motion and the junction conditions, from which the cosmological equations on both branes is derived. We find as in langlois ; csaki1 , that if the radion is not stabilized, there is a constraint between the energy densities on the branes leading to one of them being negative.

The cosmology observed on a brane depends solely on its motion through the bulk and since the two branes evolve independently there is no reason to expect that for general densities on the branes they should both move in such a way that the hierarchy is maintained. In section IV we show how the presence of the Goldberger-Wise mechanism alters the picture. In addition to fixing the geodesic distance between the branes, the GW scalar field introduces small time-dependent corrections to the bulk metric which communicate the field content of each brane to the other. These features can be seen explicitly since the GW field can be treated as a small perturbation to the AdS background. We then consider an AdSS metric which contains a horizon and find that the leading correction to the purely AdS cosmology is suppressed compared with the corresponding result with only one brane kraus ; cosmologies .

Section V contains our conclusions.

## II RS1 in AdSS Coordinates

Birkhoff’s theorem in five dimensions tells us that the most general spherically symmetric solution to the Einstein equations with a bulk cosmological constant is given by the metric

$$ds^2=u(r)dt^2+\frac{dr^2}{u(r)}+r^2d\mathrm{\Sigma }_k^2,$$
(1)
where $`r`$ is the bulk coordinate, $`d\mathrm{\Sigma }_k^2`$ is the line element for the fixed $`r`$ 3-spatial hypersurfaces, which are homogeneous and isotropic, and $`k=0,\pm 1`$ is the 3-spatial curvature parameter. Writing the bulk cosmological constant as $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=6/l^2`$, the metric coefficient $`u(r)`$ is given by

$$u(r)\frac{r^2}{l^2}+k\frac{\mu }{r^2},$$
(2)
where $`l`$ is the AdS radius of curvature and $`\mu `$ is proportional to the mass of the black hole in AdS db . In the RS2 picture this interpretation can be made exact since there are asymptotic regions in $`r`$; in RS1, the compactness in the $`r`$ direction prevents such a direct interpretation. However, for non-zero $`\mu `$, the solutions have horizons at $`r=r_h`$ where

$$r_h^2=\frac{l^2}{2}\left(k+\sqrt{k^2+4\mu /l^2}\right).$$
(3)
In the RS2 case there is an explicit coordinate transformation Ida ; Maedaetal  that maps the above space-time to the cosmological metric for RS2 as written in ref. csaki1 .

### II.1 Geodesic Inter-brane Separation

The first question we need to ask is: where is the radion mode? It certainly is not explicitly present in eq. (1), in sharp contrast to what happens when the RS1 scenario is worked out in Gaussian normal coordinates gw ; csaki1 ; gregoryetal . We can find this mode by realizing that it is supposed to describe the inter-brane separation. Given eq. (1), we can calculate this explicitly, by computing the geodesic distance between points on the two branes.

Consider two branes placed at

$`(t,r,x^i)`$ $`=`$ $`(T_0(\tau _0),R_0(\tau _0),x^i),`$
$`(t,r,x^i)`$ $`=`$ $`(T_1(\tau _1),R_1(\tau _1),x^i),`$ (4)
where the $`\tau _{0,1}`$ are the proper times on the branes. We shall take $`R_0>R_1`$ so that the brane at $`R_1`$ will be the TeV or IR brane while the brane at $`R_0`$ is the Planck or UV brane. The symmetry of the bulk metric allows us to consider a geodesic between these branes that only propagates in the $`t`$ and $`r`$ directions:

$$X^a(\lambda )=(t(\lambda ),r(\lambda ),0,0,0),$$
(5)
where $`\lambda `$ is the affine parameter on the geodesic and we take $`\lambda =0,1`$ to correspond to the positions of the UV and IR brane respectively.

The geodesic equations read

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\lambda }}\left(u(r){\displaystyle \frac{dt}{d\lambda }}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (6)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\lambda }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{u(r)}}{\displaystyle \frac{dr}{d\lambda }}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{u}{r}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{u(r)}}{\displaystyle \frac{dr}{d\lambda }}\right)^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{u}{r}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{dt}{d\lambda }}\right)^2.`$
In the sequel, we shall frequently take $`k=0`$, i.e. we take the fixed $`r`$ hypersurfaces to have flat 3-spatial sections. Note that in this case, the horizon is located at $`r_h=(\mu l^2)^{1/4}`$.

The geodesic equations above have first integrals,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dt}{d\lambda }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{l\stackrel{~}{L}}{u(r(\lambda ))}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{dr}{d\lambda }}`$ $`=`$ $`l\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{L}^2+\epsilon ^2u(r(\lambda ))}.`$ (7)
We have scaled all the dimensionful parameters by the AdS radius of curvature $`l`$ so that $`\stackrel{~}{L}`$ and $`\epsilon `$ are dimensionless.

We can solve this set of equations and then impose the boundary conditions from eq. (4). However, we can save some time by noting that the relevant distance is the one measured at the same bulk time on both branes. This means that the geodesic we want is the one for which $`\stackrel{~}{L}=0`$. Integrating the $`dr/d\lambda `$ equation, we find

$$r^2(\lambda )=r_h^2\mathrm{cosh}(2\epsilon \lambda +\theta ),$$
(8)
with

$$\theta =\mathrm{cosh}^1\left(\frac{R_0^2}{r_h^2}\right),2\epsilon +\theta =\mathrm{cosh}^1\left(\frac{R_1^2}{r_h^2}\right).$$
(9)
Note that this assumes that both $`R_0`$, $`R_1`$ are larger than $`r_h`$. The equation for $`r(\lambda )`$ in eq. (II.1) shows that, with $`\stackrel{~}{L}=0`$, the smallest value of $`r`$ allowed on this geodesic is $`r_h`$.

From eq. (II.1) we can compute the geodesic distance between the branes:

$`\mathrm{\Delta }s`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑\lambda \sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{r}(\lambda )^2}{u(r(\lambda ))}}}=|l\epsilon |`$ (10)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{l}{2}}\left[\mathrm{cosh}^1\left({\displaystyle \frac{R_0^2}{r_h^2}}\right)\mathrm{cosh}^1\left({\displaystyle \frac{R_1^2}{r_h^2}}\right)\right].`$
In particular, in the $`\mu 0`$ ($`r_h0`$) limit, we find:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }s=l\mathrm{ln}\frac{R_1}{R_0},\text{or}\frac{R_1}{R_0}=e^{\mathrm{\Delta }s/l}.$$
(11)
### II.2 Hierarchy of Scales in AdSS Coordinates

We now ask how we see the fact that the separation between the branes gives rise to a hierarchy of mass scales between the branes.

This is easy when $`\mu =0`$, since $`u(r)=r^2/l^2`$ and the bulk line element can be written as

$$ds^2=\frac{r^2}{l^2}\left(dt^2+d\stackrel{}{x}^2\right)+\frac{l^2}{r^2}dr^2,$$
(12)
where $`d\stackrel{}{x}^2l^2d\mathrm{\Sigma }_{k=0}^2`$. If we now ask what sets the scale on each brane, the fact that the branes (at least at a given instant of bulk time) are located at a fixed value of $`r`$ allows us to set $`r=R,dr=0`$ which tells us that the relation between distance measurements on the two branes is given by the ratio $`R_1^2/R_0^2`$. As we saw above, this is just $`e^{2\mathrm{\Delta }s/l}`$, which is exactly the standard RS result rsa .

The $`\mu 0`$ case contains some extra subtleties. In this case, for $`k=0`$ the line element becomes

$$ds^2=\left(\frac{r^2}{l^2}\frac{\mu }{r^2}\right)dt^2+\frac{r^2}{l^2}d\stackrel{}{x}^2+\frac{dr^2}{\frac{r^2}{l^2}\frac{\mu }{r^2}}.$$
(13)
At fixed $`r`$ this metric will be not take the Minkowski form. This makes the comparison between branes somewhat less obvious, but we can ask how distance scales on each brane compare in the case where all quantities are static in bulk time $`t`$. In this situation it is again the ratio $`R_1^2/R_0^2`$ that sets the relative scales between the branes. It is important to note that this is not related to the inter-brane separation in any simple way as can be seen from eq. (10).

This last point makes the issue of stabilization of the hierarchy somewhat murkier in this formalism. For the no-horizon case, stabilizing the inter-brane distance stabilizes the hierarchy; with a horizon, there are two variables to deal with, namely the ratio $`R_1^2/R_0^2`$ as well as one of the positions $`R_0`$, say. In the limit that $`R_i^2\sqrt{\mu l^2}=r_h^2`$, we recover the no-horizon results.

## III RS1 Cosmology with an AdSS Bulk

The gravitational action for the RS1 scenario will be taken as the sum of the bulk Einstein-Hilbert action with a cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$,

$$S_{\text{bulk}}=\frac{1}{16\pi G_5}d^5x\sqrt{g}\left[2\mathrm{\Lambda }+R\right],$$
(14)
and a boundary action of the form:

$`S_{\text{brane}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi G_5}}{\displaystyle _0}d^4x\sqrt{h_0}\left[2\sigma _0+16\pi G_5_0\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G_5}}{\displaystyle _0}d^4x\sqrt{h_0}K_0`$ (15)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi G_5}}{\displaystyle _1}d^4x\sqrt{h_1}\left[2\sigma _1+16\pi G_5_1\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G_5}}{\displaystyle _1}d^4x\sqrt{h_1}K_1.`$
A subscript 0 (1) refers to the UV (IR) brane. Here $`G_5`$ denotes the bulk Newton constant, $`h_{0,1}`$, $`K_{0,1}`$ and $`\sigma _{0,1}`$ are the determinant of the induced metric, the trace of the extrinsic curvature and brane surface tension respectively for the appropriate brane. If we define a unit normal orthogonal to the tangent space of the branes by $`[n_{0,1}]_a`$, then the induced metric and the extrinsic curvature are given in the bulk coordinates, for example on the UV brane, by

$`[h_0]_{ab}`$ $`=`$ $`g_{ab}[n_0]_a[n_0]_b`$
$`[K_0]_{ab}`$ $`=`$ $`[h_0]_a^c[h_0]_b^d_c[n_0]_d.`$ (16)
The field content on each is summarized by $`_{0,1}`$; we shall generally study the case where the fields on each brane produce the energy momentum tensor of a perfect fluid.

Following kraus ; cosmologies , we allow the positions of the branes within the bulk to evolve so as to give rise to cosmological evolution on each brane. The position of the brane in the direction transverse to the brane, given in eq. (4), will be related to the cosmological scale factor on the given brane. Now choose the normal to the brane to be of the form

$$[n_0]_a=\pm (\dot{R}_0,\dot{T}_0,0,0,0),$$
(17)
where the dot denotes a derivative with respect to the proper time on the appropriate brane. Noting that the condition $`g^{ab}n_an_b=1`$ relates $`\dot{T}_0`$ to $`\dot{R}_0`$,

$$\dot{T}_0=\frac{\left[\dot{R}_0^2+u(R_0)\right]^{1/2}}{u(R_0)},$$
(18)
we can write the induced metric in terms of brane coordinates $`(\tau _0,x^i)`$:

$`ds_0^2`$ $`=`$ $`u(R_0)\left[\dot{T}_0^2(u(R_0))^2\dot{R}_0^2\right]d\tau _0^2+R_0^2(\tau _0)d\mathrm{\Sigma }_k^2`$ (19)
$`=`$ $`d\tau _0^2+R_0^2(\tau _0)d\mathrm{\Sigma }_k^2`$
$``$ $`[h_0]_{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu `$
where $`\mu `$, $`\nu `$ run over brane coordinates. At the UV brane, the extrinsic curvature becomes

$`[K_0]_{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu `$ $`=`$ $`\pm {\displaystyle \frac{1}{u(R_0(\tau _0))\dot{T}_0}}\left[\ddot{R}_0+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{u(R_0)}{R_0}}\right]d\tau _0^2`$ (20)
$`u(R_0)\dot{T}_0R_0d\mathrm{\Sigma }_k^2.`$
The signs that appear in the definition of the normal and consequently in the extrinsic curvature, determine how the space is sliced. We shall use the upper sign in eq. (17) which corresponds to keeping the space $`r<R_0(\tau _0)`$. The form of the extrinsic curvature at the IR brane is exactly the same, once we replace the subscripts, except that the lower signs should be used to retain the region $`r>R_1(\tau _1)`$.

Let $`p_0`$ and $`\rho _0`$ be the pressure and density of the perfect fluid on the UV brane so that the UV brane stress energy is

$$[T_0]_\mu ^\nu =\text{diag}(\rho _0,p_0,p_0,p_0).$$
(21)
The Israel condition israel  relating the discontinuity in the extrinsic curvature to the presence of the brane is given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }[K_0]_{\mu \nu }=\frac{1}{3}\sigma _0[h_0]_{\mu \nu }+8\pi G_5\left[[T_0]_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{3}[T_0]_\lambda ^\lambda [h_0]_{\mu \nu }\right].$$
(22)
We shall assume that the two $`3`$-branes reside at the fixed points of an $`S^1/_2`$ orbifold so that the jump in the extrinsic curvature is $`\mathrm{\Delta }[K_0]_{\mu \nu }=2[K_0]_{\mu \nu }`$. Although eq. (22) appears to yield two constraints from the temporal and the spatial components, the $`\mathrm{\Delta }[K_0]_{\tau \tau }`$ constraint follows from the $`\mathrm{\Delta }[K_0]_{ij}`$ constraint kraus ,

$$\sqrt{\dot{R}_0^2+u(R_0)}=\frac{1}{6}R_0\sigma _0+\frac{4\pi G_5}{3}R_0\rho _0,$$
(23)
provided energy and momentum are conserved on the brane

$$\frac{d}{d\tau _0}\left(\rho _0R_0^3\right)=p_0\frac{d}{d\tau _0}R_0^3.$$
(24)
The main advantage of letting the brane positions within the bulk evolve in time is that the bulk metric is unaffected by the behavior of the branes other than by their specifying which slice of the AdS-Schwarzschild metric eq. (1) is relevant. Thus, for the UV brane we have

$$\sqrt{\dot{R}_0^2+u(R_0)}=\frac{1}{6}R_0\sigma _0+\frac{4\pi G_5}{3}R_0\rho _0,$$
(25)
while on the IR brane,

$$\sqrt{\dot{R}_1^2+u(R_1)}=\frac{1}{6}R_1\sigma _1+\frac{4\pi G_5}{3}R_1\rho _1.$$
(26)
The sign change corresponds to the fact that the normals of the two branes have the opposite orientations. As in ref. kraus , the evolution on the UV brane approaches a standard Robertson-Walker cosmology when we make the fine tuning $`\sigma _0=6/l`$ required in the original RS1 scenario and consider the limit $`R_0l`$. On the IR brane, after squaring both sides of eq. (26), we see that we also need to impose $`\sigma _1=\pm 6/l`$ in order for the large terms in the $`R_1l`$ limit to cancel,

$`\dot{R}_1^2+{\displaystyle \frac{R_1^2}{l^2}}+k{\displaystyle \frac{\mu }{R_1^2}}`$ (27)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{36}}R_1^2\sigma _1^2+{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi G_5}{9}}\sigma _1\rho _1R_1^2+\left({\displaystyle \frac{4\pi G_5}{3}}R_1\rho _1\right)^2.`$
In fact, we must choose $`\sigma _1=6/l`$ so as to satisfy the Israel condition, eq. (26), which in turn, leads to a universe in which the energy density $`\rho _1`$ must be negative to obtain standard FRW cosmological evolution on the IR brane,

$$\dot{R}_1^2+k=\frac{8\pi G_5}{3l}\rho _1R_1^2+\frac{\mu }{R_1^2}+\left(\frac{4\pi G_5}{3}\right)^2\rho _1^2R_1^2.$$
(28)
If the inter-brane separation is kept fixed at $`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$ in the original Gaussian normal coordinates of the RS model without a stabilization mechanism at play, then it was shown in ref. csaki1  that the energy densities on the branes have to satisfy

$$\rho _0=\rho _1e^{2\mathrm{\Delta }z/l}.$$
(29)
How does this constraint emerge from the AdSS bulk coordinate approach? In order to compare with ref. csaki1  we set $`\mu =0,k=0`$, and impose the fine tuning above: $`\sigma _0=\sigma _1=6/l`$. Now assume that the geodesic distance between the branes has been fixed so that $`\mathrm{\Delta }s=l\mathrm{ln}(R_1/R_0)`$ is constant. From this it follows that

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{R_1}}{\displaystyle \frac{dR_1}{d\tau _1}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{R_0}}{\displaystyle \frac{dR_0}{d\tau _1}}={\displaystyle \frac{d\tau _0}{d\tau _1}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{R_0}}{\displaystyle \frac{dR_0}{d\tau _0}}`$ (30)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\frac{R_0^2}{l^2}\frac{l^2}{R_0^2}\frac{dR_0}{dt}}}{\sqrt{\frac{R_1^2}{l^2}\frac{l^2}{R_1^2}\frac{dR_1}{dt}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{R_0}}{\displaystyle \frac{dR_0}{d\tau _0}}`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{R_0}{R_1}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{R_0}}{\displaystyle \frac{dR_0}{d\tau _0}}=e^{\mathrm{\Delta }s/l}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{R_0}}{\displaystyle \frac{dR_0}{d\tau _0}}.`$
Using eq. (30) in the equations (25) and (26), then

$$\frac{\dot{R}_0^2}{R_0^2}=\frac{8\pi G_5}{3l}\rho _0+\mathrm{},\frac{\dot{R}_1^2}{R_1^2}=\frac{8\pi G_5}{3l}\rho _1+\mathrm{},$$
(31)
where the brane tensions satisfy the fine-tuning condition and we assume that the energy densities are small compared to the tension. In this limit, we arrive at $`\rho _0\rho _1e^{2\mathrm{\Delta }s/l}`$.

## IV AdSS Cosmology with a Stabilization Mechanism

When the bulk space-time only contains a cosmological constant, Birkhoff’s theorem allows us to write the metric in the conventional, time-independent form given in eq. (1). The motion of the branes through this bulk depends on the local environment of the branes, as expressed by the Israel junction condition, so that without any means of interacting each brane evolves independently. However, the existence of a fixed hierarchy requires that the motions of the branes must be carefully correlated. From this perspective then, the appearance of an unphysical energy density is not altogether surprising. We have simply imposed a constraint upon two independently moving branes without any mechanism to enforce it.

To evade Birkhoff’s theorem, the mechanism that stabilizes the hierarchy must distort the background away from a pure AdSS space-time. These distortions will then appear in the extrinsic curvature term of the Israel equation which thus allows the motions of the branes to be naturally correlated with real, positive, independent densities on each brane. Because of this correlated motion of the branes, we generally expect that the cosmology observed on either of the branes now should depend on the field content of both, as was seen in csaki1 . Note that this distortion can be small compared with the scale of the bulk cosmological constant—thus allowing a perturbative treatment—since the terms that yielded an FRW cosmology on the branes were subleading and only became important once the tension was finely tuned to cancel the leading bulk effect.

The Goldberger-Wise stabilization mechanism gw  adds a free massive scalar field to the bulk with a potential on each brane to fix the boundary values of the scalar field,

$`S_{\mathrm{GW}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G_5}}{\displaystyle d^5x\sqrt{g}\left[\frac{1}{2}_a\varphi ^a\varphi \frac{1}{2}m^2\varphi ^2\right]}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G_5}}{\displaystyle _0}d^4x\sqrt{h_0}\left[\lambda _0(\varphi ^2v_0^2)^2\right]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G_5}}{\displaystyle _1}d^4x\sqrt{h_1}\left[\lambda _1(\varphi ^2v_1^2)^2\right].`$
We have normalized the fields to extract the factor $`(8\pi G_5)^1`$ to simplify the form of some of the later equations. Varying the total action produces the usual Einstein and scalar field equations in the bulk,

$`R_{ab}\frac{1}{2}g_{ab}R`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{ab}+𝒯_{ab}`$
$`^2\varphi +m^2\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (33)
while at the UV brane the equations of motion are

$`\mathrm{\Delta }[K_0]_{ab}`$ $`=`$ $`\frac{1}{3}\sigma [h_0]_{ab}+8\pi G_5\left[[T_0]_{ab}\frac{1}{3}[T_0]_c^c[h_0]_{ab}\right]`$
$`[n_0]^a_a\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`2\lambda _0(\varphi ^2v_0^2)\varphi `$ (34)
with an analogous equation at the IR brane. Here, $`[T_0]_{ab}`$ and $`𝒯_{ab}`$ are the energy-momentum tensors associated with the fields confined to the brane and with $`\varphi `$ respectively.

The presence of the scalar field alters the bulk geometry, but in the limit where it is small compared to the cosmological constant, $`ml1`$, we can treat its effect as a perturbation to the AdSS background,

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`u(r)\left[1+\chi _{tt}(t,r)\right]dt^2`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{u(r)}}\left[1+\chi _{rr}(t,r)\right]dr^2+r^2d\mathrm{\Sigma }_{k=0}^2,`$
where throughout this section we set $`k=0`$. In this metric we have still assumed that the three large spatial dimensions are isotropic. Since the scalar field is responsible for the perturbations, $`\chi _{tt}`$ and $`\chi _{rr}`$ will be of the same order as $`𝒯_{ab}`$.

As the induced metric at the brane suggests, the scale $`R_1`$ ($`<R_0`$) is associated with the scale factor of an FRW universe while $`l`$ is naturally of the order of the Planck length. Therefore, for an acceptable cosmology, we can assume that $`l/r1`$ throughout the bulk. In this limit the form of the metric naturally suppresses terms with time derivatives relative to those with $`r`$ derivatives. This feature greatly simplifies the analysis of the back-reaction of the scalar field on the bulk geometry since eq. (33) will effectively only constrain the $`r`$ dependence of $`\chi _{tt}`$, $`\chi _{rr}`$ and $`\varphi `$. This behavior can be seen, for example, by considering $`𝒯_{tt}`$ which is given up to $`\chi _{tt}`$, $`\chi _{rr}`$ corrections by

$$𝒯_{tt}=\frac{1}{2}(_t\varphi )^2+\frac{1}{2}u^2(r)(\varphi ^{})^2+\frac{1}{2}u(r)m^2\varphi ^2+\mathrm{}$$
(36)
with $`\varphi ^{}_r\varphi `$. If neither brane is near the black hole horizon, then the $`r`$-derivative term is enhanced by a factor of $`u^2(r)r^4/l^4`$ relative to the time derivative term. The same feature appears in the Einstein equations eq. (33). Thus, as long as the time derivatives are not excessively large, as we shall later show, the bulk field equations only constrain the radial dependence.

Expanding the field equations to first order in $`\chi _{tt}`$, $`\chi _{rr}`$ and $`\varphi ^2`$, and substituting in the zeroth order solution for an AdS (or AdSS) background, we find

$`{\displaystyle \frac{12}{l^2}}\chi _{rr}+{\displaystyle \frac{3u}{r}}\chi _{rr}^{}=u\varphi _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+m^2\varphi ^2`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{12}{l^2}}\chi _{rr}{\displaystyle \frac{3u}{r}}\chi _{tt}^{}=u\varphi _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+m^2\varphi ^2`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{r}}_t\chi _{rr}=2\varphi ^{}_t\varphi `$ (37)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{12}{l^2}}\chi _{rr}+\left[2{\displaystyle \frac{r^2}{l^2}}+u\right]{\displaystyle \frac{\chi _{rr}^{}}{r}}\left[6{\displaystyle \frac{r^2}{l^2}}u\right]{\displaystyle \frac{\chi _{tt}^{}}{r}}`$
$`u\chi _{tt}^{\prime \prime }=u\varphi _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+m^2\varphi ^2`$
from the Einstein equations and

$$u\varphi ^{\prime \prime }+u^{}\varphi ^{}+\frac{3u}{r}\varphi ^{}m^2\varphi =0$$
(38)
from the scalar field equation (33). The Bianchi identity relates these equations so that, for example, the last equation in (37) is not independent.

### IV.1 A Stabilized AdS Cosmology

For a purely AdS space, i.e. $`\mu =0`$, and in the limit that we suppress the contributions of time derivatives, we can solve the scalar field solution as in to find as in ref. gw ,

$$\varphi (r)=\frac{1}{r^2}\left[a(t)r^\nu +b(t)r^\nu \right],$$
(39)
where

$$\nu \sqrt{4+m^2l^2}.$$
(40)
Substituting this solution into eq. (37) and solving for the metric perturbations yields

$`\chi _{tt}(t,r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{a(t)b(t)(\nu ^24)3c(t)}{r^4}}+d(t)`$
$`\chi _{rr}(t,r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}a^2(t)(\nu 2)r^{2(2\nu )}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}b^2(t)(\nu +2)r^{2(2+\nu )}+{\displaystyle \frac{c(t)}{r^4}}.`$
The functions $`a(t)`$, $`b(t)`$, $`c(t)`$, and $`d(t)`$ are constants of integration with respect to the $`r`$ derivatives and are only fixed to this order in $`l/r`$ by the third equation of (37) which requires that

$$_tc=\frac{2}{3}(\nu +2)b_ta+\frac{2}{3}(\nu 2)a_tb.$$
(42)
The scalar field must satisfy the jump conditions described by eq. (34). However, if as in gw  we assume that the potentials on the branes are sufficiently rigid, $`\lambda _0,\lambda _1\mathrm{}`$, then the scalar field value is forced to the minimum value of the potential on each brane,

$`\varphi (T_0,R_0)`$ $`=`$ $`v_0=a(T_0)R_0^{2+\nu }+b(T_0)R_0^{2\nu }`$
$`\varphi (T_1,R_1)`$ $`=`$ $`v_1=a(T_1)R_1^{2+\nu }+b(T_1)R_1^{2\nu }.`$ (43)
Now, we saw in section II that the stabilized hierarchy in these coordinates corresponds to fixing the geodesic distance between the branes along a constant time geodesic, so that $`T_0=T_1`$. Setting $`a=a(T_0)=a(T_1)`$ and $`b=b(T_0)=b(T_1)`$, we thus find

$`a`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{v_0v_1(R_1/R_0)^{2+\nu }}{1(R_1/R_0)^{2\nu }}}R_0^{2\nu }`$
$`b`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{v_1(R_1/R_0)^{2\nu }v_0}{1(R_1/R_0)^{2\nu }}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{R_1}{R_0}}\right)^{2\nu }R_0^{2+\nu }.`$ (44)
when evaluated at either brane. This result is exactly that of ref. gw  except for the implicit time dependence in $`R_0`$ and $`R_1`$.

When the scalar field satisfies eq. (43), the scalar potentials vanish and the only contribution to the energy-momentum tensor on the branes is due to the fields confined to the branes which we take to be a perfect fluid stress tensor, as in eq. (21). For fluids satisfying the conservation law of eq. (24), we only need to solve for the $`ij`$ component since the $`\tau \tau `$ component of the Israel condition is does not give rise to an independent constraint. Retaining only the corrections linear in the perturbations and unsuppressed by powers of $`l/r`$ in

$$[K_0]_{ij}=\frac{\sqrt{u(R_0)+\dot{R}_0^2}}{R_0}\left[1\frac{1}{2}\chi _{rr}(T_0,R_0)+\mathrm{}\right][h_0]_{ij},$$
(45)
the Israel condition on the UV brane becomes

$$2\frac{R_0^2}{l^2}+\dot{R}_0^2=\frac{R_0^2}{3l}\sigma _0+\frac{8\pi G_5}{3l}\rho _0R_0^2+\frac{R_0^2}{l^2}\chi _{rr}(T_0,R_0).$$
(46)
At the IR brane, since we have different signs from the opposite orientation for the normal, we arrive at

$$2\frac{R_1^2}{l^2}+\dot{R}_1^2=\frac{R_1^2}{3l}\sigma _1\frac{8\pi G_5}{3l}\rho _1R_1^2+\frac{R_1^2}{l^2}\chi _{rr}(T_1,R_1).$$
(47)
In both of these equations, we have neglected $`𝒪(\rho ^2)`$ corrections.

The small change in the bulk background produced by the Goldberger-Wise field will in general require a corresponding shift in the usual choice of the brane tensions to cancel the cosmological constant in the effective cosmology on the brane. We therefore set the brane tensions to:

$$\sigma _0=\frac{6}{l}\left(1+\frac{1}{2}\delta \sigma _0\right)\text{and}\sigma _1=\frac{6}{l}\left(1+\frac{1}{2}\delta \sigma _1\right)$$
(48)
Substituting these into (46) and (47) and using our solution for the metric perturbation in (IV.1) yields

$`\dot{R}_0^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi G_5}{3l}}\rho _0R_0^2+{\displaystyle \frac{c(T_0)}{l^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{R_0^2}}`$
$`+\left[\delta \sigma _0{\displaystyle \frac{4(v_1v_0)^2}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{R_1^8}{R_0^8}}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{R_0^2}{l^2}}+\mathrm{}`$
$`\dot{R}_1^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi G_5}{3l}}\rho _1R_1^2+{\displaystyle \frac{c(T_1)}{l^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{R_1^2}}`$ (49)
$`+\left[\delta \sigma _1{\displaystyle \frac{4(v_1v_0)^2}{3}}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{R_1^2}{l^2}}+\mathrm{}.`$
Since we wish to establish that the leading behavior mimics a FRW cosmology, we have neglected $`𝒪(ml)`$ corrections in (49) by setting $`\nu =2`$.

The final function $`c(t)`$ is determined on the branes by the requirement that the hierarchy should be stabilized. As in gw , we can determine the preferred separation between the branes for a given set of parameters $`(m,v_0,v_1)`$ by integrating the scalar action over the radial dimension to define an effective potential for $`R_1/R_0`$,

$`{\displaystyle d^4x\sqrt{g_{\mathrm{eff}}}\left[V_{\mathrm{eff}}(R_0,R_1)\right]}`$ (50)
$`{\displaystyle _{R_1}^{R_0}}𝑑r{\displaystyle d^4x\sqrt{g}\left[\frac{1}{2}_a\varphi ^a\varphi \frac{1}{2}m^2\varphi ^2\right]}.`$
Substituting eq. (39) into eq. (50) and integrating over a constant time hypersurface so that we can use eq. (44), we discover that the dependence on geodesic distance $`R_1/R_0`$ in the effective potential factorizes

$$V_{\mathrm{eff}}(R_0,R_1)=\frac{R_0^4}{l^2}\widehat{V}_{\mathrm{eff}}\left(\frac{R_1}{R_0}\right)$$
(51)
with

$`\widehat{V}_{\mathrm{eff}}(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(\nu 2)\left[v_0v_1x^{2+\nu }\right]^2}{1x^{2\nu }}}`$ (52)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{(\nu +2)\left[v_0v_1x^{2\nu }\right]^2x^{2\nu }}{1x^{2\nu }}}.`$
In the $`ml1`$ limit, $`\widehat{V}_{\mathrm{eff}}(x)`$ is minimized by

$$x=\frac{R_1}{R_0}\left(\frac{v_1}{v_0}\right)^{4/m^2l^2}.$$
(53)
Note that by adding an $`𝒪(m^2l^2)`$ constant to the right side of eq. (50), we can arrange the minimum to occur at $`\widehat{V}_{\mathrm{eff}}=0`$, thus keeping the $`R_0^4`$ coefficient in eq. (51) from driving $`R_00`$ or $`R_0\mathrm{}`$.

Once the relative brane separation has settled to the value determined by eq. (53), the motion of the branes is correlated so that, as in eq. (30),

$$\dot{R}_0=\frac{dR_0}{d\tau _0}\dot{R}_1=\frac{dR_1}{d\tau _1}.$$
(54)
In the absence of a stabilizing mechanism, this condition was arbitrarily imposed as a constraint on the two brane system which required a negative energy density on one of the branes. We now see that eq. (54) arises as a natural consequence of minimizing the radion effective potential and instead of constraining the field densities on the branes, it fixes the remaining integration function $`c(t)`$ evaluated on the branes at equal times, $`cc(T_0)=c(T_1)`$,

$`c`$ $`=`$ $`l^2R_1^2(1{\displaystyle \frac{R_1^2}{R_0^2}})^1[{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi G_5}{3l}}(\rho _0R_0^2+\rho _1R_1^2)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{l^2}}(\delta \sigma _0R_0^2\delta \sigma _1R_1^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3l^2}}(v_1v_0)^2R_1^2].`$
When eq. (IV.1) is substituted into the equation for the evolution of the IR brane, the leading $`\rho _1`$ term cancels the density term in (49) with the undesired sign. The next to leading term in $`\rho _1`$, where the expansion is in powers of the exponential hierarchy, has the required sign for a well-behaved FRW cosmology:

$`\dot{R}_1^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi G_5}{3l}}{\displaystyle \frac{R_1^2}{R_0^2}}\left[\rho _1+\rho _0{\displaystyle \frac{R_0^4}{R_1^4}}\right]R_1^2`$
$`+\left[\delta \sigma _0{\displaystyle \frac{R_0^4}{R_1^4}}\delta \sigma _1+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3l^2}}(v_1v_0)^2\right]{\displaystyle \frac{R_1^2}{R_0^2}}R_1^2+\mathrm{}.`$
Choosing the tensions such that the second term vanishes, we see that the presence of a stabilized radion has led to a realistic effective cosmology on the branes,

$$\frac{\dot{R}_1^2}{R_1^2}=\frac{8\pi G_5}{3l}e^{2\mathrm{\Delta }s/l}\left[\rho _1+\rho _0e^{4\mathrm{\Delta }s/l}\right]+\mathrm{}.$$
(57)
The fixed hierarchy implies that the equation for the evolution of the UV brane is exactly the same up to a rescaling by $`e^{2\mathrm{\Delta }s/l}`$,

$$\frac{\dot{R}_0^2}{R_0^2}=\frac{8\pi G_5}{3l}\left[\rho _0+\rho _1e^{4\mathrm{\Delta }s/l}\right]+\mathrm{}.$$
(58)
We might have naïvely expected that once the hierarchy between the two brane system is stabilized, the cosmological evolution should depend on the field content of both branes, weighted by possible exponential factors. The approach where the brane cosmology arises from the motion of the branes through a nearly static bulk explicitly shows the origin of this dependence. By distorting the bulk from pure anti-de Sitter space, the scalar field both communicates the energy density from one brane to the other as in eq. (IV.1) and cancels the unphysical term in the IR brane motion. As noted in csaki1 , the presence of matter on the UV brane can easily overwhelm the effect of matter on the IR brane and so drive the cosmology unless it is exponentially smaller than that of the IR brane. Also, eq. (57) suggests that we should define the effective Newton constant for an observer on the IR brane to be

$$G_N\frac{G_5}{l}e^{2\mathrm{\Delta }s/l};$$
(59)
this result also agrees with the effective Newton constant appropriate for two masses confined to the IR brane, as derived in csaki1 .

We can also discuss some of the corrections to eq. (57) which would allow us to distinguish a brane-induced cosmology from a standard FRW cosmology. As in eq. (28), the presence of $`\rho _1^2`$ effects reflects a general feature of brane-induced cosmologies. To find the detailed form of such corrections would require solving the equations of motion to second order in the metric perturbations since, from eqs. (IV.1,IV.1), $`\chi _{rr}`$ has terms that depend linearly on the field densities of the branes. The leading $`𝒪(ml)`$ corrections are proportional to $`R_1^2`$, or $`R_0^2`$, and can be eliminated by appropriately choosing the brane tensions. If we do not fine-tune the brane tensions, then the cosmology will contain a term resembling an effective cosmological constant.

The solutions to the perturbed metric were found in the limit in which the time derivatives are suppressed in the equations of motion. We can determine when these terms would be important, thus requiring that the full $`r`$ and $`t`$ dependent equations be solved, by comparing the typical size of of such terms in the solutions presented above. For example, the scalar potentials in eq. (IV) hold the value of the field constant at the branes so that as the brane moves, the $`r`$ and $`t`$ derivatives are related via

$$\dot{T}_0_t\varphi +\dot{R}_0\varphi ^{}=\frac{d\varphi }{d\tau _0}=0.$$
(60)
Thus, using eq. (18) and neglecting $`\dot{R}_0^2`$ compared to $`u(R_0)=R_0^2/l^2`$,

$$_t\varphi \frac{R_0}{l}\dot{R}_0\varphi ^{}.$$
(61)
As we saw earlier in eq. (36), the $`\varphi ^{}`$ terms are enhanced by a factor $`u^2(r)=r^4/l^4`$ over $`_t\varphi `$ terms,

$`𝒯_{tt}`$ $`=`$ $`\frac{1}{2}(_t\varphi )^2+\frac{1}{2}u^2(R_0)(\varphi ^{})^2+\mathrm{}`$ (62)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{R_0^4}{l^4}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{l^2}{R_0^2}}\dot{R}_0^2(\varphi ^{})^2+(\varphi ^{})^2\right]+\mathrm{};`$
so that despite eq. (61), the first term is still negligible compared with the second.

### IV.2 A Stabilized AdSS Cosmology

The meaning of a stabilized hierarchy becomes less clear when a black hole horizon is introduced into the bulk metric, even if the horizon does not actually appear in the bulk. The parameter $`\mu `$ in the anti-de Sitter-Schwarzschild metric breaks the conformal flatness of the metric in the large $`3+1`$-dimensions, which is needed to define an unambiguous hierarchy. Yet when this parameter is sufficiently small

$$\frac{r^2}{l^2}\frac{\mu }{r^2}1\text{for }R_1rR_0$$
(63)
so that we can still neglect the time derivatives, the quantity that sets the hierarchy and therefore must be fixed by the stabilization mechanism is still $`R_1/R_0e^{\mathrm{\Delta }s/l}`$, up to $`\mu `$-dependent corrections. In fact, if these corrections are to be larger than those due to the time derivatives that we are neglecting, then the black hole mass should not be too small,

$$1\frac{l\sqrt{\mu }}{r^2},\frac{l}{\sqrt{\mu }}.$$
(64)
Neglecting time derivatives again, the important terms in the bulk Einstein equations eq. (37) and bulk scalar field equation eq. (38) are

$`12\chi _{rr}+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{r^4\mu l^2}{r^2}}\chi _{rr}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{r^4\mu l^2}{r^2}}\varphi _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+m^2l^2\varphi ^2`$ (65)
$`12\chi _{rr}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{r^4\mu l^2}{r^2}}\chi _{tt}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{r^4\mu l^2}{r^2}}\varphi _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+m^2l^2\varphi ^2`$
and

$$\frac{r^4\mu l^2}{r^2}\varphi ^{\prime \prime }+\frac{5r^4\mu l^2}{r^3}\varphi ^{}m^2l^2\varphi +\mathrm{}=0.$$
(66)
While we require $`ml>0`$ in order to determine the effect of the presence of the horizon on the Goldberger-Wise mechanism, once the hierarchy has been stabilized, $`𝒪(ml)`$ terms will be unimportant for the leading description of the brane cosmology. Setting $`ml0`$ in eqs. (6566, yields the following leading behavior for the scalar field,

$$\varphi (r)=a(t)\frac{b(t)}{\mu l^2}\mathrm{ln}\left[1\frac{\mu l^2}{r^4}\right]+𝒪(ml)$$
(67)
while for corrections to the background metric we find,

$`\chi _{tt}(t,r)`$ $`=`$ $`d(t)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r^4\mu l^2}}[c(t)+{\displaystyle \frac{8}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{b^2(t)}{\mu l^2}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{8}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{b^2(t)r^4}{\mu ^2l^4}}(1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu l^2}{r^4}})\mathrm{ln}[1{\displaystyle \frac{\mu l^2}{r^4}}]]`$
$`\chi _{rr}(t,r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{b^2(t)}{\mu l^2(r^4\mu l^2)}}\mathrm{ln}\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{\mu l^2}{r^4}}\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{c(t)}{r^4\mu l^2}},`$
up to $`𝒪(ml)`$ terms.

Determining the boundary conditions as before and retaining only the leading $`\mu `$-dependent corrections yields the following cosmology on the IR brane

$`\dot{R}_1^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi G}{3l}}{\displaystyle \frac{R_1^2}{R_0^2}}\left[\rho _1+{\displaystyle \frac{R_0^4}{R_1^4}}\rho _0\right]R_1^2+𝒪(\mu ^2)`$
$`+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{R_0^4}{R_1^4}}\delta \sigma _0\delta \sigma _1+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}(v_1v_0)^2\right]{\displaystyle \frac{R_1^2}{R_0^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{R_1^2}{l^2}}.`$
Upon fine-tuning the brane tensions,

$$\frac{\dot{R}_1^2}{R_1^2}=\frac{8\pi G_N}{3}\left[\rho _1+\rho _0e^{4\mathrm{\Delta }s/l}\right]+𝒪(\mu ^2)+\mathrm{},$$
(70)
where $`e^{\mathrm{\Delta }s/l}R_1/R_0`$ as before and the effective Newton constant is defined in (59). Notice that unlike the scenario with a single brane kraus ; cosmologies , where the leading terms in the brane cosmology are of the form

$$\frac{\dot{R}^2}{R^2}=\frac{8\pi G_5}{3l}\rho +\frac{\mu }{R^4}+\mathrm{},$$
(71)
such a term, linear in $`\mu `$, does not appear in the two brane scenario. In the one brane scenario, such a term behaves, with its $`R^4`$ dependence, like a radiation fluid but is canceled here by the stabilization mechanism. Therefore, the distance between the IR brane and the horizon can be much smaller than in the single brane model and still produce an acceptable cosmology, at least until terms quadratic in $`\rho _{0,1}`$ and $`\mu `$ become important.

## V Conclusions

There were two main points we wanted to make in this work. The first was that, while some of the features of RS1 models are less obvious in the AdSS formulation presented above, and despite the fact that the bulk is static to leading order in this formulation, when the black hole horizon vanishes, the brane cosmologies have the same behavior here as in the Gaussian normal formulation. This was not a priori obvious, especially because the bulk geometry appears quite different in the two different formulations.

The second point was that introducing a horizon into the geometry can modify the cosmological behavior on the IR brane. While we were only able to see this in a perturbative expansion in $`r_h/r`$, we were able to see that the stabilization mechanism cancels the leading effect so that the “dark radiation” contribution that generically appears in the one brane scenario is absent her.

It would be interesting to go beyond a perturbative solution in the $`\mu 0`$ case; this is technically complicated and may involve some conceptual issues such as how the horizon affects the boundary conditions on bulk fields, the GW scalar in particular. We hope to return to this in a future publication.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Ira Rothstein for suggesting this problem to us and for useful discussions at various points in this work. This work was supported in part by DOE grant DE-FG03-91-ER40682.


text:
# Higher Derivative Fermionic Field Theories

## I Introduction

Higher derivative (HD) field theories appear in many physical situations such as the Higgs model regularizations Higgs  or generalized electrodynamics ED1 -julve2 , but their main interest resides in their use as gravitational actions. HD gravitational field models arise as effective low energy theories of the string Gross  or are induced by quantum fields in a curved background Birrel . Theories with quadratic curvature terms have been studied closely because they are renormalizable Stelle  in four dimensions. This property led to Renormalization-Group analyses in julve0 , which culminate in Avr , including attempts to avoid the appearance of Weyl ghosts usually occurring in HD theories WG . For these reasons, it is in the gravitational framework where essential progress has taken place. In particular, during the eighties a mechanism has been devised to deal with the Hamiltonian formulation of an arbitrary HD gauge field theory which was successfully applied to HD gravity Lyahovich . Somewhat later, in the nineties, a covariant differential order reduction for HD field theories was found ferraris . This kind of covariant techniques were used in the late nineties to identify the propagating degrees of freedom (DOF) in both diff-invariant julve1  and gauge fixed HD gravity yo1 . Moreover, some effort has been devoted to study general bosonic HD free theories julve3 ; yo2  as useful testbeds for HD gravity.

HD fermionic field theories have also been considered in the literature111Fermionic theories in which the field equations are differential equations of order greater than one are referred as HD fremionic theories., for example in the context of the effective action for the trace anomaly in conformal field theory Shapiro , as a dynamical mechanism for fermionic mass generation, and in the frame of Faddeev-Popov222Although the Faddeev-Popov compensating fields for HD-gravity are not femionic fields (their spins are 0 or 1) they are anticommuting ones. In this sense they are different from the usual bosonic fields treated in julve3 ; yo2 . compensating Lagrangian for HD gravity yo1 . Therefore it would be very useful to generalize all the work done in the bosonic case to cover the presence of fermionic fields. This is one of the goals of the present paper. Another is to provide a general framework for the differential order reduction methods developed for HD theories in ferraris  and treated in julve1 -julve3 . The starting point in the study of any field theory, including HD ones, is the characterization of the propagating DOF. There are several ways to do this. The first, and standard, follows a detailed analysis of the Ostrogradski phase space julve3 , Ostro  in order to characterize the reduced phase space henn , i.e. the subspace of the phase space where the physical degrees of freedom (DOF) reside. However when the theory is linear there exists a second and highly useful shortcut provided by the use of the covariant symplectic techniques of Witten and Crnković witten ; CR . The idea of these methods relies in the construction, directly through the action, of a symplectic form on the space of solutions to the field equations (covariant phase space) and use it to generate conserved quantities (energy, angular momentum and so on) that characterize the propagating DOF. The covariant symplectic techniques have proved to be an essential tool in the classification of free theories and also in the identification of the propagating DOF Fer&Yo . We will see that they also allow us to complete, with *all* generality, the order reduction in HD theories.

When we are dealing with HD relativistic field theories, the story does not end once the DOF have been identified. The reason is that HD theories can be usually reinterpreted in terms of lower derivative (LD) ones that propagate (in the free limit) according to standard Lagrangians. The machinery necessary for this reinterpretation combines the use of the covariant Legendre transform ferraris  and a subsequent diagonalization in the fields julve1 . This procedure has been developed in various examples: diff-invariant HD gravity julve1 , gauge fixed HD electromagnetism julve2 , gauge-fixed gravity yo1 , and HD scalars julve3 . However, there are at least two issues left aside in these works. The first one is the extension of the above results to fermions, covering the general derivative case333Within the frame of HD scalar theories and covariant Legendre transform, reference julve3  fails to cover the diagonalization of the general derivative situation. The problem has been solved in yo2  avoiding the covariant Legendre transform by using Lagrange multipliers and symplectic covariant techniques.. The second and more interesting is to find a unifying point of view that encompasses all the previous works. The motivation of the present paper is to clarify these two points.

The paper is organized as follows. After this introduction, section II is devoted to review the use of the covariant symplectic techniques for Dirac fields and to fix some conventions. Section III deals with a simple HD fermionic field theory in order to make it simpler to understand the general $`N`$-derivative fermionic theory –under the hypothesis of non-degenerate masses– treated in section IV. We end the paper with several comments and our conclusions (section V). Some details of the computations and the general conventions are left to the appendices A and B. Finally appendix C indicates how the differential order reduction method proposed in section IV can be extended to cover a wide class of HD field theories.

## II A Review of the Dirac Lagrangian

Let us start with a quick review of the standard Dirac Lagrangian in order to fix conventions and notations. As is well known, the free propagation of spin $`1/2`$ and mass $`m`$ modes can be described through the Dirac Lagrangian $`_m^D`$, that can be written in two equivalent forms

$`_m^D`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[\overline{\psi }(i\stackrel{}{/}m)\psi \overline{\psi }(i\stackrel{}{/}+m)\psi \right]=\overline{\psi }(i\stackrel{}{/}m)\psi _\mu \left({\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\psi }i\gamma ^\mu \psi }{2}}\right).`$
where $`m`$ is a mass parameter, $`\psi `$ is a Dirac spinor, $`/:=\gamma ^\mu _\mu `$, $`\gamma ^\mu `$ are the Dirac matrices, $`\overline{\psi }:=\psi ^{}\gamma ^0`$, and $``$ denotes complex conjugation and transposition (see appendix A for a resume of the conventions). The first and more symmetric expression is appropriate for analytical purposes and will be used in the following sections when we introduce the differential reduction order methods. The second is suitable to define the propagator. The Euler-Lagrange equations associated to the Dirac Lagrangian are

$`(i/m)\psi =0,`$ (1)
and the oriented $`\overline{\psi }`$-$`\psi `$ fermionic propagator is

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_m^D:={\displaystyle \frac{1}{i/m}}={\displaystyle \frac{i/+m}{\mathrm{}+m^2}}.`$
The dynamics is governed by the field equations (1) that define the Dirac covariant phase space $`𝒮_m^D`$. To parametrize $`𝒮_m^D`$ we solve the field equations using spatial Fourier transform and the notation introduced in appendix A. It is straightforward Z  to prove that $`\psi 𝒮_m^D`$ if and only if

$`\psi (t,\stackrel{}{x})={\displaystyle \underset{\alpha =1,2}{}}{\displaystyle _^3}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3\stackrel{}{k}}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{m}{k^0}}\left[a^\alpha (k)u^\alpha (k)e^{ikx}+b^\alpha (k)v^\alpha (k)e^{ikx}\right],`$ (2)
where $`u^\alpha (k)`$, $`v^\alpha (k)`$ are basic spinors, $`kx:=k^0t\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}`$, $`k^0:=\sqrt{\stackrel{}{k}^2+m^2}`$, and the functional parameters that distinguish one solution from another are encoded on the $`a^\alpha (k)`$ and $`b^\alpha (k)`$ fields.

Let us show how the symplectic covariant techniques witten  induces a symplectic form $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^D`$ in the space $`𝒮_m^D`$. First define the 2-form

$`\mathrm{\Omega }^D={\displaystyle _\mathrm{\Sigma }}\omega _D^\mu 𝑑\sigma _\mu ,`$
where $`d\sigma _\mu `$ is the measure on a space-like hypersurface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$,

$`\omega _D^\mu `$ $`:=`$ $`\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}{\displaystyle \frac{_m^D}{\psi _\mu }}\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}\psi \mathrm{𝑑𝐼}\overline{\psi }\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}{\displaystyle \frac{_m^D}{\overline{\psi }_\mu }}=i\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}\overline{\psi }\gamma ^\mu \mathrm{𝑑𝐼}\psi ,`$
and $`\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}`$, $``$ are, respectively, the exterior derivative and the wedge product in the linear manifold $`𝒮_m^D`$.

The density $`\omega _D^\mu `$ is divergence-free when restricted to $`𝒮_m^D`$, in other words $`_\mu \omega _D^\mu =0`$ modulo field equations. Then the restriction $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^D`$ of $`\mathrm{\Omega }^D`$ on $`𝒮_m^D`$ is a well defined 2-form on this functional space, i.e. is time-independent, and in the parametrization (2) can be written as444$`z^{}`$ denotes the complex conjugate of $`z`$.

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^D`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha =1,2}{}}{\displaystyle _^3}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3\stackrel{}{k}}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{m}{k^0}}[\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}a^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k})\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}a^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k})+\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}b^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k})\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}b^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k})].`$ (3)
The symplectic form (3) determines the propagating DOF of the Dirac theory –the canonical pairs $`a^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k})`$-$`a^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k})`$ and $`b^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k})`$-$`b^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k})`$– and can also be used to derive constants of motion if one considers the following version of the Noether theorem. When the symplectic form $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is invariant under a group of transformations and we take a vector $`V`$ tangent to an orbit of this group it is straightforward to prove CR , that locally $`i_V\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}H`$, where $`i_V\mathrm{\Omega }`$ denotes the contraction of $`V`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The quantity $`H`$ is the generator of the symmetry transformation corresponding to $`V`$. If the action is Poincaré invariant we obtain in this way the energy-momentum and the angular momentum densities (with the right symmetries in their tensor indices) by computing $`i_V\mathrm{\Omega }`$ for vectors $`V`$ describing translations and Lorentz transformations and writing the result as $`\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}H`$. Noticing that under a translation of parameter $`\tau ^\mu `$ we have $`i_{V_T}\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}a^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k})=i\tau ^\mu k_\mu a^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k})`$ and $`i_{V_T}\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}b^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k})=i\tau ^\mu k_\mu b^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k})`$, the energy of a solution is given by

$`H_m^D`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha =1,2}{}}{\displaystyle _^3}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3\stackrel{}{k}}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{m}{k^0}}k^0\left[a^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k})a^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k})b^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k})b^\alpha (\stackrel{}{k})\right].`$
It is worthwhile to point out that the minus sign between the $`a`$ and the $`b`$ fields forces us to take them as *anti-commuting* variables to ensure de positivity of the energy.

## III A simple HD fermionic theory

Once we feel comfortable with the notation, lets us consider the following simple HD fermionic Lagrangian

$`_{m_1m_2}^{\left(2\right)}=\overline{\psi }(i\stackrel{}{/}m_1)(i\stackrel{}{/}m_2)\psi ,`$
with real mass parameters555The problems associated with the presence of degenerate and/or complex “masses” are detailed in reference yo2 . $`m_1<m_2`$. It is straightforward to write down the HD-field equations for this model

$`(i/m_1)(i/m_2)\psi =0,`$ (4)
whose space of solutions, $`𝒮_{m_1m_2}^{\left(2\right)}`$, can be parametrized in terms of a sum of Dirac fields in the form

$`\psi =\psi _1+\psi _2,`$ (5)
where $`(i/m_l)\psi _l=0`$, for $`l=1,2`$. Explicitly, in the notation given in Section II,

$`\psi _l(t,\stackrel{}{x})={\displaystyle \underset{\alpha =1,2}{}}{\displaystyle _^3}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3\stackrel{}{k}}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_l}{k_l^0}}\left[a_l^\alpha (k)u_l^\alpha (k)e^{ik_lx}+b_l^\alpha (k)v_l^\alpha (k)e^{ik_lx}\right],`$ (6)
where, as in previous section, $`u_l^\alpha (k)`$, $`v_l^\alpha (k)`$ are basic spinors defined in appendix A, $`k_lx=k_l^0t\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}`$, $`k_l^0:=\sqrt{\stackrel{}{k}^2+m_l^2}`$, and the parameters that distinguish one solution from another are encoded on the $`a_l^\alpha (k)`$ and $`b_l^\alpha (k)`$ fields. Also the HD propagator can be easily found as a sum of Dirac propagators

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_{m_1m_2}^{\left(2\right)}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(i/m_1)(i/m_2)}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_2m_1}}\left(\mathrm{\Delta }_{m_2}^D\mathrm{\Delta }_{m_1}^D\right).`$
The physical interpretation is clear. The theory describes two LD fermionic DOF, a physical one (positive contribution to the energy) with mass $`m_2`$ and a Weyl ghost (negative contribution to the energy) with mass $`m_1`$.

We can learn more about this theory by looking it through the glass provided by the covariant symplectic techniques. The extension of the covariant symplectic techniques to the HD field theories was done in Aldaya . Following Aldaya  the HD Lagrangian has an associated 2-form

$`\mathrm{\Omega }^{\left(2\right)}={\displaystyle _\mathrm{\Sigma }}\omega _{\left(2\right)}^\mu 𝑑\sigma _\mu ,`$
where

$`\omega _{\left(2\right)}^\mu `$ $`:=`$ $`\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}({\displaystyle \frac{_{m_1m_2}^{\left(2\right)}}{\psi _\mu }}_\nu {\displaystyle \frac{_{m_1m_2}^{\left(2\right)}}{\psi _{\mu \nu }}})\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}\psi +\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}{\displaystyle \frac{_{m_1m_2}^{\left(2\right)}}{\psi _{\mu \nu }}}\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}\psi _\nu `$
$`=`$ $`i(m_1+m_2)\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}\overline{\psi }\gamma ^\mu \mathrm{𝑑𝐼}\psi +(^\mu \mathrm{𝑑𝐼}\overline{\psi })\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}\psi \mathrm{𝑑𝐼}\overline{\psi }^\mu \mathrm{𝑑𝐼}\psi .`$
It is easy to show that $`\omega _{\left(2\right)}^\mu `$ is real and, modulo field equations, $`_\mu \omega _{\left(2\right)}^\mu =0`$. Then we can compute the symplectic form, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{m_1m_2}^{\left(2\right)}`$, over the space of propagating DOF, $`𝒮_{m_1m_2}^{\left(2\right)}`$, making use of the parametrization given by equations (5)-(6). This leads to a well defined 2-form on $`𝒮_{m_1m_2}^{\left(2\right)}`$, namely

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{m_1m_2}^{\left(2\right)}=(m_2m_1)\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_{m_2}^D\mathrm{\Omega }_{m_1}^D\right),`$
and Noether’s theorem gives us the energy

$`H_{m_1m_2}^{\left(2\right)}=(m_2m_1)\left(H_{m_2}^DH_{m_1}^D\right).`$
This supports the intuitive interpretation of $`_{m_1m_2}^{\left(2\right)}`$ given by the propagator decomposition as a theory describing two Dirac fields. In fact the simplectic form confirms that this is the right interpretation and also, through the Noether theorem, that the field $`\psi _1`$ is a Weyl ghost. It contributes to the energy with a wrong sign, destroying the semi-boundedness of the Hamiltonian and consequently the unitarity of the quantum formulation of the theory.

Finally let us show how it is possible to find a covariant Legendre transform connecting the HD theory with a LD one where the usual Dirac fields are explicit. To this end we define the first order differential operator $`D:=i/`$, that satisfies $`_^4\overline{\psi }_1(D\psi _2)=_^4\overline{(D\psi _1)}\psi _2`$, and rewrite the Lagrangian in terms of this object. Namely, modulo total derivatives,

$`_{m_1m_2}^{\left(2\right)}(\psi ,\overline{\psi },D\psi ,\overline{D\psi }):=\overline{D\psi }D\psi {\displaystyle \frac{m_1+m_2}{2}}\left(\overline{D\psi }\psi +\overline{\psi }D\psi \right)+m_1m_2\overline{\psi }\psi .`$
Then we introduce a generalized Legendre transform ferraris  with respect to the momenta generated by the $`D`$-operator666We must treat a field and its conjugate as independent variables in the Legendre transform in order to allow the presence of grassmanian fields yo1 . Then, the derivatives with respect $`D\psi `$ and $`\overline{D\psi }`$ are respectively left and right derivatives.

$`\pi :={\displaystyle \frac{_{m_1m_2}^{\left(2\right)}}{\overline{D\psi }}}=D\psi {\displaystyle \frac{m_1+m_2}{2}}\psi ;\overline{\pi }:={\displaystyle \frac{_{m_1m_2}^{\left(2\right)}}{D\psi }}=\overline{D\psi }{\displaystyle \frac{m_1+m_2}{2}}\overline{\psi }.`$ (7)
This transformation is not singular and it permits the inversion of the derivative of $`\psi `$ as a function $`D\psi =\nu (\pi ,\psi )`$ given by

$`\nu (\pi ,\psi ):=\pi +{\displaystyle \frac{m_1+m_2}{2}}\psi ;\overline{\nu (\pi ,\psi )}:=\overline{\pi }+{\displaystyle \frac{m_1+m_2}{2}}\overline{\psi }.`$
The Legendre transform (7) has an associated Hamiltonian

$`_{m_1m_2}^{\left(2\right)}(\psi ,\overline{\psi },\pi ,\overline{\pi })`$ $`:=`$ $`\overline{\pi }\nu (\pi ,\psi )+\overline{\nu (\pi ,\psi )}\pi _{m_1m_2}^{\left(2\right)}(\psi ,\overline{\psi },\nu (\pi ,\psi ),\overline{\nu (\pi ,\psi )})`$
$`=`$ $`\overline{\pi }\pi +{\displaystyle \frac{m_1+m_2}{2}}\left(\overline{\psi }\pi +\overline{\pi }\psi \right)+\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_1m_2}{2}}\right)^2\overline{\psi }\psi ,`$
and the HD dynamics (4) can be described now by means of the Euler-Lagrange equations derived from the Helmholtz LD Lagrangian

$`_H^{\left(2\right)}(\psi ,\overline{\psi },\pi ,\overline{\pi };D\psi ,\overline{D\psi }):=\overline{\pi }D\psi +\overline{D\psi }\pi _{m_1m_2}^{\left(2\right)}(\psi ,\overline{\psi },\pi ,\overline{\pi }).`$
Although $`_H^{\left(2\right)}`$ is a LD Lagrangian classically equivalent to $`_{m_1m_2}^{\left(2\right)}`$, it does not explicitly exhibit the propagating DOF. However the diagonalization can be carried out taking into account the special structure of the covariant phase space. Defining the new fields $`\psi _1`$ and $`\psi _2`$ in the form

$`\psi `$ $`=:`$ $`\psi _1+\psi _2,`$ (8)
$`\pi `$ $`=:`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_1m_2}{2}}\left(\psi _1+\psi _2\right),`$ (9)
the Helmholtz Lagrangian decouples the propagating modes

$`_H^{\left(2\right)}=(m_2m_1)\left(_{m_2}^D_{m_1}^D\right).`$
The relative minus sign shows the presence of a Weyl ghost.

The diagonalization (8)-(9) can be found by means of a very natural reasoning. Over the solution space, where the DOF reside, we can write $`\psi =\psi _1+\psi _2`$ with $`(i/m_l)\psi _l=0`$. Then, on this space

$`\psi =\psi _1+\psi _2;\pi =D\psi {\displaystyle \frac{m_1+m_2}{2}}\psi ={\displaystyle \frac{m_1m_2}{2}}(\psi _1\psi _2).`$
The above relations, that coincide with the proposed diagonalization, indicates how the DOF are encoded within the fields $`\psi `$ and $`\pi `$. Moreover, the relation $`\{\psi ,\pi \}\{\psi _1,\psi _2\}`$ is invertible because of the invertibility of the Legredre transform (7).

We are ready to generalize the above results, obtained in a very simple 2-derivative framework, to the general $`N`$-derivative situation.

## IV $`N`$-Derivative Fermionic Theory

In this section we consider the general $`N`$-derivative Lagrangian

$`_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}:=\overline{\psi }{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{N}{}}}(i\stackrel{}{/}m_l)\psi ,`$
where $`(i/m_l)`$ are Dirac operators with real mass parameters $`m_l`$ that have been ordered following the $`l`$-index ordering, i.e. $`m_l<m_l^{}`$ when $`l<l^{}`$.

The propagating DOF described by $`_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}`$ can be read out from the algebraic decomposition for the HD propagator $`\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}`$ in terms of Dirac propagators

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}:={\displaystyle \frac{1}{_{l=1}^N(i/m_l)}}={\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{m_l}^D}{_{l^{}l}^N(m_lm_l^{})}}.`$
Notice that the sign alternates in the coefficients $`_{l^{}l}^N(m_lm_l^{})`$ so the occurrence of Weyl ghosts is to be expected. Mathematically the propagating DOF are points in the space of solutions to the field equations that we refer in the following as $`𝒮_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}`$. The covariant phase space $`𝒮_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}`$ is defined by the Euler-Lagrange equations

$`{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{N}{}}}(i/m_l)\psi =0.`$
These equations can be solved by means of a linear combination of Dirac fields in the form

$`\psi ={\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{N}{}}}\psi _l,`$
where

$`(i/m_l)\psi _l=0.`$ (10)
As in previous sections, the standard parametrization for the $`\psi _l`$ fields satisfying equation (10), that provides us with a explicit parametrization of $`𝒮_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}`$, is

$`\psi _l(t,\stackrel{}{x})={\displaystyle \underset{\alpha =1,2}{}}{\displaystyle _^3}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3\stackrel{}{k}}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_l}{k_l^0}}\left[a_l^\alpha (k)u_l^\alpha (k)e^{ik_lx}+b_l^\alpha (k)v_l^\alpha (k)e^{ik_lx}\right].`$ (11)
The decomposition of the HD propagator as a sum of Dirac propagators, with alternating sign coefficients, and the decomposition of the space of solutions as a direct sum of Dirac spaces indicates that the theory represents the propagation of $`N`$-Dirac fields, some of them physical and some of them Weyl ghosts. This is the case, and it is possible to give a more precise proof of this fact. The Lagrangian $`_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}`$ induces a symplectic form in the space of spinor fields by means of

$`\mathrm{\Omega }^{\left(N\right)}={\displaystyle _\mathrm{\Sigma }}\omega _{\left(N\right)}^\mu 𝑑\sigma _\mu ,`$
where

$`\omega _{\left(N\right)}^\mu `$ $`:=`$ $`\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}({\displaystyle \frac{_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}}{\psi _\mu }}_{\mu _1}{\displaystyle \frac{_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}}{\psi _{\mu \mu _1}}}+\mathrm{}+(1)^{N1}_{\mu _1}\mathrm{}_{\mu _{N1}}{\displaystyle \frac{_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}}{\psi _{\mu \mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _{N1}}}})\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}\psi `$
$`+`$ $`\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}({\displaystyle \frac{_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}}{\psi _{\mu \nu _1}}}_{\mu _1}{\displaystyle \frac{_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}}{\psi _{\mu \nu _1\mu _1}}}+\mathrm{}+(1)^{N2}_{\mu _1}\mathrm{}_{\mu _{N2}}{\displaystyle \frac{_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}}{\psi _{\mu \nu _1\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _{N2}}}})\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}\psi _{\nu _1}`$
$`+`$ $`\mathrm{}+\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}{\displaystyle \frac{_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}}{\psi _{\mu \nu _1\mathrm{}\nu _{N1}}}}\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}\psi _{\nu _1\mathrm{}\nu _{N1}}`$
This is so because over the $`𝒮_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}`$ space the 2-form density $`\omega _{\left(N\right)}^\mu `$ satisfies $`_\mu \omega _{\left(N\right)}^\mu =0`$. Hence, the restriction of $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{\left(N\right)}`$ to $`𝒮_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}`$ –that we refer as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}`$– is a well defined 2-form on this functional space, i.e. is time-independent. In fact, it is straightforward, but highly tedious (see appendix B), to compute this restriction in the parametrization given by (10) to obtain

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{m_l}^D}{_{ll^{}}^N(m_lm_l^{})}}.`$ (13)
Consequently the DOF of the theory are a sum of Dirac DOF. Finally the energy, computed through Noether theorem, takes the form

$`H_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{H_{m_l}^D}{_{ll^{}}^n(m_lm_l^{})}}.`$
Because of the sign alternates in the coefficients $`_{ll^{}}^N(m_lm_l^{})`$, namely $`sg\left(_{ll^{}}^N(m_lm_l^{})\right)=(1)^{N+l}`$, some of the fields are physical (positive contribution to the energy) and some are Weyl ghosts (negative contribution to the energy).

Once we have identified the propagating DOF –and due to the special form of the propagator, the covariant phase space, the symplectic form, and energy that can be obtained as linear combinations of Dirac objects– it is plausible to presume the existence of a mapping that transforms the original HD theory into a sum of LD Dirac theories. To this end, as we did in section III, it is convenient to follow a series of preliminary steps. First define the differential operator $`D:=i/`$ and then expand the differential kernel $`_{l=1}^N(Dm_l)`$ appearing in $`_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}`$ in the form

$`{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{N}{}}}(Dm_l){\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{N}{}}}c_lD^{Nl},`$
where

$`c_0:=1;c_l:=(1)^l{\displaystyle \underset{a_1<\mathrm{}<a_l}{}}m_{a_1}\mathrm{}m_{a_l},l=1,\mathrm{},N.`$
A last technical remark is still in order. The heavy algebra involved in the following forces us to treat the $`N`$ odd and $`N`$ even cases separately. We work out in detail the $`N=2n`$ one and refer to the bosonic framework considered in julve3  and tesis  to understand certain peculiarities present for $`N=2n1`$.777In the $`N`$-odd case the definition of the highest momentum yields a constraint –that can be easily taking into account– while the field derivative is worked out from the next momentum definition. Once the constraint is solved, the odd case is exactly analogue to the even one.

Modulo total derivatives the HD Lagrangian $`_𝐦^{\left(2n\right)}`$ can be rewritten in the more convenient form

$`^{\left(2n\right)}={\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{n}{}}}c_{2l}\overline{D^{nl}\psi }D^{nl}\psi +{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{n}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{c_{2l1}}{2}}\left[\overline{D^{nl}\psi }D^{n+1l}\psi +\overline{D^{n+1l}\psi }D^{nl}\psi \right].`$
This expression suggests the introduction of the Ostrogradski-like variables

$`\chi _r:=D^{r1}\psi ;\overline{\chi _r}:=\overline{D^{r1}\psi },r=1,\mathrm{},n,`$ (14)
and their corresponding momenta by means of a covariant Legendre transform

$`\pi _n:={\displaystyle \frac{}{\overline{D^n\psi }}}=D\chi _n+{\displaystyle \frac{c_1}{2}}\chi _n;\overline{\pi }_n:={\displaystyle \frac{}{D^n\psi }}=\overline{D\chi }_n+{\displaystyle \frac{c_1}{2}}\overline{\chi }_n.`$ (15)
$`\pi _r:={\displaystyle \frac{}{\overline{D^r\psi }}}+D\pi _{r+1};\overline{\pi }_r:={\displaystyle \frac{}{D^r\psi }}+\overline{D\pi }_{r+1},r=1,\mathrm{},n1.`$
It is easy to show that this Legendre transform is non-singular due to the invertibility of the highest derivatives $`D\chi _n`$ and $`\overline{D\chi _n}`$ in terms of the $`\chi `$ and $`\pi `$ variables, namely

$$\nu _n(\chi ,\pi ):=D\chi _n=\pi _n\frac{c_1}{2}\chi _n;\overline{\nu _n(\chi ,\pi )}:=\overline{D\chi _n}=\overline{\pi _n}\frac{c_1}{2}\overline{\chi _n}.$$

Thus it is possible to find an expression for the Lagrangian in terms of this new variables

$`_𝐦^{\left(2n\right)}=\overline{\pi }_n\pi _n{\displaystyle \frac{c_1}{2}}\overline{\chi }_n\chi _n+{\displaystyle \underset{r=0}{\overset{n1}{}}}c_{2r}\overline{\chi }_{nr}\chi _{nr}+{\displaystyle \underset{r=0}{\overset{n2}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{c_{2r1}}{2}}\left[\overline{\chi }_{nr}\chi _{n1r}+\overline{\chi }_{n1r}\chi _{nr}\right].`$
The Ostrogradski-like Hamiltonian associated with the Legendre transform is

$`_𝐦^{\left(2n\right)}`$ $`:=`$ $`\overline{\pi _n}\nu _n(\chi ,\pi )+\overline{\nu _n(\chi ,\pi )}\pi _n+{\displaystyle \underset{r=1}{\overset{n1}{}}}\overline{\pi _r}\chi _{r+1}+{\displaystyle \underset{r=1}{\overset{n1}{}}}\overline{\chi _{r+1}}\pi _r_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}(\chi ,\overline{\chi };\nu _n(\chi ,\pi ),\overline{\nu _n(\chi ,\pi )})`$
$`=`$ $`\overline{\pi }_n\pi _n{\displaystyle \frac{c_1}{2}}\left[\overline{\pi }_n\chi _n+\overline{\chi }_n\pi _n\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{c_1^2}{2}}\overline{\chi }_n\chi _n+`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{r=1}{\overset{n1}{}}}\left[\overline{\pi }_r\chi _{r+1}+\overline{\chi }_{r+1}\pi _r\right]{\displaystyle \underset{r=0}{\overset{n1}{}}}c_{2r}\overline{\chi }_{nr}\chi _{nr}{\displaystyle \underset{r=0}{\overset{n2}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{c_{2r1}}{2}}\left[\overline{\chi }_{nr}\chi _{n1r}+\overline{\chi }_{n1r}\chi _{nr}\right].`$
Finally the Helmholtz Lagrangian –the LD Lagrangian, clasically equivalent to $`_𝐦^{\left(2n\right)}`$, generated by the Legendre transform– is

$`_H^{\left(2n\right)}:={\displaystyle \underset{r=1}{\overset{n}{}}}\left[\overline{\pi }_rD\chi _r+\overline{D\chi }_r\pi _r\right]_𝐦^{\left(2n\right)}.`$
As usual in the covariant Legrendre procedure julve3 ; yo2 , the expression for $`_H^{\left(2n\right)}`$ does not exhibit the propagating DOF. However, its straightforward to find a new set of variables in terms of which the propagation is explicit. Specifically it suffices to introduce the new set of $`\psi _l`$-fields888At this point the $`\psi _l`$ fields are simply a new set of variables. We follow the same notation used to denote the Dirac fields in (11). We will show that these new fields diagonalize the Helmholtz Lagrangian in terms of the Dirac ones. through

$`\chi _r`$ $`:=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{2n}{}}}m_l^{r1}\psi _l,`$ (16)
$`\overline{\chi }_r`$ $`:=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{2n}{}}}m_l^{r1}\overline{\psi }_l,`$ (17)
$`\pi _r`$ $`:=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{2n}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{2(nr)}{}}}c_km_l^{2nrk}+{\displaystyle \frac{c_{2(nr)+1}}{2}}m_l^{r1}\right)\psi _l,`$ (18)
$`\overline{\pi }_r`$ $`:=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{2n}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{2(nr)}{}}}c_km_l^{2nrk}+{\displaystyle \frac{c_{2(nr)+1}}{2}}m_l^{r1}\right)\overline{\psi }_l.`$ (19)
In this variables, and modulo total derivatives, the Helmholtz Lagrangian becomes diagonal

$`_H^{\left(2n\right)}={\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{2n}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{l^{}l}{\overset{2n}{}}}(m_lm_l^{})_{m_l}^D.`$
The key observation to find the diagonalization (16)-(19) relies in the following simple fact. The Ostrogradski variables $`\chi _r`$ and momenta $`\pi _r`$ can be expressed by means of a one-to-one map in terms of the original HD variable $`\psi `$ and its derivatives $`D^k\psi `$, namely

$`\chi _r`$ $`=`$ $`D^{r1}\psi ,`$ (20)
$`\pi _r`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{2(nr)}{}}}c_kD^{2nrk}\psi +{\displaystyle \frac{c_{2(nr)+1}}{2}}D^{r1}\psi .`$ (21)
When we restrict the relations (20)-(21) to the space of solutions parametrized by (11) –that is, over the propagating DOF space– we reobtain the one-to-one linear relations (16)-(19) between the $`\{\chi _r,\pi _r\}`$ and $`\{\psi _l\}`$ variables. This is the reason why this linear redefinition diagonalizes $`_H^{2n}`$.

All the preceding results can be generalized to cover a wide class of linear theories including those considered in previous works julve2  and yo2 . In particular the procedure followed here resolves the deficiencies inherent to more primitive approaches julve3 . Specifically it leads us to the diagonalization for the $`N`$-derivative theory within the framework of the covariant Legendre mapping. We summarize in appendix C the essential steps and requirements that allow us, following the lines of this section, to transform a HD linear theory into a LD one where the propagating DOF are explicit.

## V Conclusions and Comments

We have proved the equivalence of HD fermionic field theories and a LD counterpart where the DOF are explicit by means of a covariant Legendre transform ferraris  and a subsequent diagonalization. The previous attempts to solve this kind of problems, that considered only scalar field theories julve3 , failed to find the general diagonalization to an arbitrary differential order due to the heavy algebra involved. A way out of this was given in yo2 , in a more general framework than julve3  –and also dealing with bosonic field theories–, but the solution proposed there abandons the use of the Legendre transform in favor of the Lagrange multipliers method. The use of the covariant symplectic techniques in combination with the covariant Legendre transform avoids the algebraic problems of julve3  permitting us to find an explicit formula for the DOF diagonalization at every differential order and to generalize the previous results to the fermionic case.

The approach that we follow here is exportable to more general theories –classical mechanics, HD gravity, and so on– as we schematically show in appendix C. It is also important to realize that the presence of gauge symmetries in the theory does not change the results in any way. When dealing with HD theories written in terms of differential forms, such as those considered in yo2 , the role of the $`D`$-operator ($`D=i/`$ in the present work) can be simulated by an operator constructed by means of the exterior differential $`d`$ and its dual $`\delta `$, for example $`D=\delta d`$. Even considering the possible existence of gauge symmetries ($`Dd\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$, for any field $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$) the analogue of the Legendre mapping (14)-(15) is still nonsingular and therefore the reduction order procedure works exactly as in section IV.

Another remarkable fact is that, in spite of the fact that it is always possible to reduce the differential order by means of a covariant Legendre mapping, the diagonalization of the resulting LD theory in terms of a sum of standard theories it is not always possible yo2  (but when possible, the method presented here allow us to find it). To fix ideas, let us return to the fermionic case where the more general HD, Lorentz invariant, Lagrangian for a spinor $`\psi `$ without internal indices takes the form

$$^{\left(n\right)}=\overline{\psi }\left(D^n+c_1D^{n1}+\mathrm{}+c_{n1}D+c_n\right)\psi ,$$

where $`c_i`$ are real parameters with the appropriate dimensions. As is well known, the polynomial $`D^n+c_1D^{n1}+\mathrm{}+c_{n1}D+c_n`$ can be factorized in terms of its roots. In section IV we have make the assumption that all the roots are different999We have assumed also their positivity. This is a necessary requirement if we want these parameters to be physical masses, but it can be relaxed for the diagonalization purposes.. This is a necessary hypothesis in order to succeed in the diagonalization process. However, if we consider a HD “mass-degenerate” model, the diagonalization cannot be carried out. For example, starting with

$$_{mm}^{\left(2\right)}=\overline{\psi }(Dm)^2\psi ,$$

the Legendre procedure presented in section IV leads us to the LD Hemholtz Lagrangian

$$_H^{\left(2\right)}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\overline{\psi }& \overline{\pi }\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& Dm\\ Dm& 1\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\psi \\ \pi \end{array}\right).$$

The propagator associated with $`_H^{\left(2\right)}`$ is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{(\psi \pi )}=\frac{1}{(Dm)^2}\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& Dm\\ Dm& 0\end{array}\right).$$

As it is clear, this propagator cannot be diagonalized by means of a linear redefinition on the fields $`(\psi ,\pi )`$ not involving differential operators. This is so because $`1/(Dm)^2`$ is not a linear combination of Dirac propagators and then it is not possible to find a $`c`$-number matrix $`Q`$ such that $`Q^{}\mathrm{\Delta }_{(\psi \pi )}Q`$ becomes diagonal with Dirac propagators on its diagonal elements. The same conclusion can be reached with an elementary analysis of the covariant phase space.

Finally, we want to point out that the diagonalization process of the LD equivalent theory, obtained by Legendre transform, strongly relies on the decomposition of the HD solution space as a direct sum of LD ones. This decomposition is tied to the decomposition of the HD propagator as a sum of simpler pieces or, at least, on its relationships with simpler propagators. Then, in order to make practical use of the differential order reductions presented in the paper, the knowledge of the properties of the Green functions of HD differential operators is needed. Some results in this direction can be found in Avr2  where, by means of heat kernel methods, the Green functions of a wide class of products of second order differential operators have been studied and their relationship with LD counterparts pointed out. These results are a key ingredient if one wants to find the LD-diagonalized equivalent of such a HD theory by means of a covariant Legendre transform.

## Appendix A  Conventions

We use the Minkowski metric $`\eta _{\mu \nu }=diag(+1,1,1,1)`$ to lower and raise space-time indices and use the Einstein convention for summation over repeated indices. The derivatives with respect to coordinates are sometimes abbreviated as

$$_{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _k}:=\frac{^k}{_{\mu _1}\mathrm{}_{\mu _k}},$$

and $`\mathrm{}:=_\mu ^\mu =_0^2\stackrel{}{}^2`$ is the d’alambertian operator.

For any $`X^{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _k}`$, $`X^{\{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _k\}}`$ represents its index symmetrization, namely

$$X^{\{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _k\}}:=\frac{1}{k!}\underset{\pi \mathrm{\Pi }^{(k)}}{}X^{\mu _{\pi _1}\mathrm{}\mu _{\pi _k}},$$

where $`\mathrm{\Pi }^{\left(k\right)}`$ denotes the permutation group of $`k`$-elements.

The Dirac $`\gamma `$ matrices satisfy

$$\gamma ^{\{\mu _1}\gamma ^{\mu _2\}}=\eta ^{\mu _1\mu _2}$$

with $`\gamma ^0`$ hermitian and $`\gamma ^i`$ antihermitian. As usual $`/k:=k_\mu \gamma ^\mu `$.

Dirac spinors $`u^\alpha (k)`$ and $`v^\alpha (k)`$ are a basis of solutions to the Dirac equations

$$(/km)u^\alpha (k)=0;(/k+m)v^\alpha (k)=0.$$

They depend implicitly on the mass $`m`$ and explicitly on the on-shell momentum $`k`$ with $`k^0:=\sqrt{\stackrel{}{k}^2+m^2}`$, and the $`\alpha `$ index that labels the polarizations. In this basis, and making use of the spatial Fourier transform, any spinor field can be expressed as

$$\psi (t,\stackrel{}{x})=\underset{\alpha =1,2}{}_^3\frac{d^3\stackrel{}{k}}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{m}{k^0}\left[a^\alpha (k,t)u^\alpha (k)e^{i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}}+b^\alpha (k,t)v^\alpha (k)e^{i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}}\right].$$

The functions $`a^\alpha (k,t)`$ and $`b^\alpha (k,t)`$ take the special form $`a^\alpha (k,t)=a^\alpha (k)e^{ik^0t}`$ and $`b^\alpha (k,t)=b^\alpha (k)e^{ik^0t}`$ when considering spinor fields that satisfy the Dirac equation $`(i/m)\psi =0`$.

The basic spinors $`u`$ and $`v`$ satisfies the following normalization properties

$`\overline{u}^\alpha (k)u^\beta (k)=\delta _{\alpha \beta };\overline{v}^\alpha (k)v^\beta (k)=\delta _{\alpha \beta };\overline{v}^\alpha (k)u^\beta (k)=\overline{u}^\alpha (k)v^\beta (k)=0.`$
$`u^\alpha (k)u^\beta (k)=\delta _{\alpha \beta }{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\stackrel{}{k}^2+m^2}}{m}};v^\alpha (k)v^\beta (k)=\delta _{\alpha \beta }{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\stackrel{}{k}^2+m^2}}{m}}.`$
$`v^\alpha (k^0,\stackrel{}{k})u^\beta (k^0,\stackrel{}{k})=u^\alpha (k^0,\stackrel{}{k})v^\beta (k^0,\stackrel{}{k})=0,`$
where the conjugate spinors $`\overline{u}`$ are defined as $`\overline{u}:=u^{}\gamma ^0`$, and $``$ denotes transposition and complex conjugation.

## Appendix B Some Remarks on the Computation of the Symplectic Form

We summarize here the main steps involved in the calculation of the symplectic form (13) of Section IV. The symplectic form is given Aldaya  through space integration of the density

$`\omega _{\left(N\right)}^\mu `$ $`:=`$ $`\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}({\displaystyle \frac{_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}}{\psi _\mu }}_{\mu _1}{\displaystyle \frac{_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}}{\psi _{\mu \mu _1}}}+\mathrm{}+(1)^{N1}_{\mu _1}\mathrm{}_{\mu _{N1}}{\displaystyle \frac{_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}}{\psi _{\mu \mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _{N1}}}})\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}\psi `$
$`+\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}({\displaystyle \frac{_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}}{\psi _{\mu \nu _1}}}_{\mu _1}{\displaystyle \frac{_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}}{\psi _{\mu \nu _1\mu _1}}}+\mathrm{}+(1)^{N2}_{\mu _1}\mathrm{}_{\mu _{N2}}{\displaystyle \frac{_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}}{\psi _{\mu \nu _1\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _{N2}}}})\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}\psi _{\nu _1}`$
$`+\mathrm{}+\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}{\displaystyle \frac{_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}}{\psi _{\mu \nu _1\mathrm{}\nu _{N1}}}}\mathrm{𝑑𝐼}\psi _{\nu _1\mathrm{}\nu _{N1}}.`$
In order to compute the derivatives of the Lagrangian that appear in the definition of $`\omega _{\left(N\right)}^\mu `$ is convenient to rewrite

$`_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}(\psi ,\psi _{\mu _1},\mathrm{},\psi _{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _N}):=\overline{\psi }{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{N}{}}}(i/m_l)\psi ={\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{N}{}}}c_{Nk}i^k\overline{\psi }/^k\psi ,`$
where the constants $`c_k`$ are defined in terms of mass products

$$c_0:=1;c_k:=(1)^k\underset{a_1<\mathrm{}<a_k}{}m_{a_1}\mathrm{}m_{a_k}.$$

Thus, in this notation,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}}{\psi _{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _k}}}=c_{Nk}i^k\overline{\psi }\gamma ^{\{\mu _1}\mathrm{}\gamma ^{\mu _k\}},`$ (22)
where the symmetrization of the Dirac gamma products can be expressed in terms of the inverse of the Minkowskian metric $`\eta ^{\mu \nu }`$ in one of the following forms

$`\gamma ^{\{\mu _1}\mathrm{}\gamma ^{\mu _{2k}\}}=\eta ^{\{\mu _1\mu _2}\mathrm{}\eta ^{\mu _{2k1}\mu _{2k}\}}(\mathrm{even}),`$ (23)
$`\gamma ^{\{\mu _1}\mathrm{}\gamma ^{\mu _{2k1}\}}=\gamma ^{\{\mu _1}\eta ^{\mu _2\mu _3}\mathrm{}\eta ^{\mu _{2k2}\mu _{2k1}\}}(\mathrm{odd}),k.`$
Plugging (23) into (22) and taking care of the combinatorics, we found that the terms of the density $`\omega _{\left(N\right)}^\mu `$ belong to one of the following four categories

$`\mathrm{𝟏}.`$ $`_{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _{2k1}}{\displaystyle \frac{_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}}{\psi _{\mu \mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _{2k1}}}}=(1)^kc_{N2k}\mathrm{}^{k1}^\mu \overline{\psi }.`$
$`\mathrm{𝟐}.`$ $`_{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _{2k}}{\displaystyle \frac{_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}}{\psi _{\mu \mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _{2k}}}}={\displaystyle \frac{(1)^kic_{N2k1}}{2k+1}}\left(\mathrm{}^k^\mu \overline{\psi }\gamma ^\mu +2k\mathrm{}^{k1}^\mu _\sigma \overline{\psi }\gamma ^\sigma \right).`$
$`\mathrm{𝟑}.`$ $`_{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _{2k}}{\displaystyle \frac{_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}}{\psi _{\mu \nu \mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _{2k}}}}={\displaystyle \frac{(1)^{k+1}c_{N2k2}}{2k+1}}\left(\mathrm{}^k\eta ^{\mu \nu }\overline{\psi }+2k\mathrm{}^{k1}^\mu ^\nu \overline{\psi }\right).`$
$`\mathrm{𝟒}.`$ $`_{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _{2k1}}{\displaystyle \frac{_𝐦^{\left(N\right)}}{\psi _{\mu \nu \mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _{2k1}}}}={\displaystyle \frac{(1)^kic_{N2k1}}{2k+1}}(^\mu \mathrm{}^{k1}\overline{\psi }\gamma ^\nu +^\nu \mathrm{}^{k1}\overline{\psi }\gamma ^\mu `$
$`+\eta ^{\mu \nu }_\sigma \mathrm{}^{k1}\overline{\psi }\gamma ^\sigma +2(k1)^\mu ^\nu _\sigma \mathrm{}^{k2}\overline{\psi }\gamma ^\sigma ).`$
Now making use of the parametrization (11), that is $`\psi =_{l=0}^N\psi _l`$, where

$`\psi _l(t,\stackrel{}{x})={\displaystyle \underset{\alpha =1,2}{}}{\displaystyle _^3}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3\stackrel{}{k}}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_l}{k_l^0}}\left[a_l^\alpha (k)u_l^\alpha (k)e^{ik_lx}+b_l^\alpha (k)v_l^\alpha (k)e^{ik_lx}\right],k_l^0=\sqrt{\stackrel{}{k}^2+m^2},`$
remembering that the constants $`c_k`$ are defined in terms of the masses $`m_l`$ and using the properties of the spinors $`u_l`$ and $`v_l`$ detailed in Appendix A it is straightforward, but slightly tedious, to derive equation (13) for the symplectic form.

## Appendix C The Underlying Idea

The procedure developed in main body of the paper for spinorial fields can be straightforwardly extended to cover all linear models for which the field equations can be derived from a variational principle of the form

$`S_{HD}[\varphi ]=\varphi |(D+M_1)\mathrm{}(D+M_N)\varphi ,`$ (24)
where $`M_i`$ are “mass” parameters (usually $`M_i=m_i`$ when dealing with fermions, $`M_i=m_i^2`$ when dealing with bosons), ordered by their subscript $`M_1<M_2<\mathrm{}<M_N`$, $`|`$ is a pseudo-scalar product, and $`D`$ a differential operator symmetric under $`|`$, that is

$`\varphi _1|D\varphi _2=D\varphi _1|\varphi _2.`$
Generically, in the fermionic case $`D`$ will be a first order differential operator such as $`D=i/`$ and in the bosonic case a second order one such as $`D=\delta d`$ for differential forms or $`D=\mathrm{}\left(\frac{1}{2}P^{(2)}P^{(s)}\right)`$ for HD-gravity yo2 .

Under this hypothesis, and through the lines presented in Section IV, it is a trivial task to define a correspondence between $`S_{HD}[\varphi ]`$ and the action

$`{\displaystyle \underset{a=1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{ba}{\overset{N}{}}}(M_bM_a)S_a[\varphi _a],`$ (25)
where

$`S_a[\varphi _a]:=\varphi _a|(D+M_a)\varphi _a.`$
This can be done by following the same steps as in the spinorial case. First define a Legendre transformation of the form (14)-(15) and then a linear redefinition in the form of (16)-(19) to select the propagating DOF. Formally, the same formulas are valid in the general case with the obvious identifications $`\psi \varphi `$, $`\overline{\psi }\varphi |`$, and $`m_lM_l`$.

###### Acknowledgements.

The author wishes to thank F. Barbero, J. Julve, and F. J. de Urries for several interesting discussions. This work was supported by a Spanish Ministry of Education and Culture fellowship co-financed by the European Social Fund.