THURSDAYS
APPLIED MATH GROUP MEETINGS

“Critical gravity in
D-dimensions”

By

Tahsin Çağrı
Şişman

Abstract: We study the
parameter space of D-dimensional cosmological Einstein gravity together with
quadratic curvature terms. In D>4 there are in general two distinct
(anti)-de Sitter vacua. We show that for appropriate choice of the parameters
there exists a critical point for one of the vacua, for which there are only massless tensor, but neither massive tensor nor scalar,
gravitons. Both the linearized excitations and the
black holes at criticality have vanishing energy. With a further restriction of
the parameters, for which the quadratic curvature terms become purely the
square of the Weyl tensor, the AdS
vacuum becomes unique.

Date:
January 27, 2011 Thursday

Time: 15.40

Place: Bilkent
University, Mathematics Seminar Room, SA-141