Physical nonviability of f(Q) in the scalar-tensor representation

arXiv:2606.30036 · gr-qc, astro-ph.CO · Submitted 2026-06-29 · Read on arXiv

Jose Beltrán Jiménez, Alejandro Jiménez Cano, Tomi S. Koivisto

gr-qc, astro-ph.CO

Submitted: 2026-06-29

Comments: 7 pages, no figures. We added further clarifications on the propagating nature of the ghost and the number of dofs

License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/

Terminology

• Generalization — 2× in this paper · explained in 13 episodes
• Higher-order derivatives — 2× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• General Relativity — 1× in this paper
• Robustness — 1× in this paper · explained in 5 episodes
• Trace — 1× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes

Sources

• The Geometrical Trinity of Gravity
• General Teleparallel Quadratic Gravity
• Symmetric teleparallel general relativity
• Lagrange formulation of the symmetric teleparallel gravity
• Coincident General Relativity
• Teleparallel Palatini theories
• Cosmology in $f(Q)$ geometry
• Pathological Character of Modifications to Coincident General Relativity: Cosmological Strong Coupling and Ghosts in $f(\Q)$ Theories
• A class of ghost-free theories in symmetric teleparallel geometry
• Exploring the stability of $f(Q)$ cosmology near general relativity limit with different connections
• Accidental gauge symmetries of Minkowski spacetime in Teleparallel theories
• General Parallel Cosmology
• Complete classification of cosmological teleparallel geometries
• Ghost instabilities and strong coupling in quadratic non-metricity theories
• Degrees of freedom of a quadratic scalar-nonmetricity theory
• Lost in translation: the Abelian affine connection (in the coincident gauge)
• Spatial curvature in coincident gauge $f(Q)$ cosmology
• Resummation of Massive Gravity
• Nonpropagating ghost in covariant $f(Q)$ gravity
• Ghosts without runaway

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