Exploring gravitational theories beyond Horndeski
Abstract
We have recently proposed a new class of gravitational scalar-tensor theories free from ghost instabilities. As they generalize Horndeski theories, or "generalized" galileons, we call them G$^3$. These theories possess a simple formulation when the time hypersurfaces are chosen to coincide with the uniform scalar field hypersurfaces. We confirm that they do not suffer from Ostrogradski instabilities by presenting the details of the Hamiltonian formulation. We examine the coupling between these theories and matter. Moreover, we investigate how they transform under a disformal redefinition of the metric. Remarkably, these theories are preserved by disformal transformations, which also allow subfamilies of G$^3$ to be mapped into Horndeski theories.