Ghost free mimetic massive gravity

Abstract

The mass of the graviton can be generated using a Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism with four scalar fields. We show that when one of these fields is costrained as in mimetic gravity, the massive gravity obtained is ghost free and consistent. The mass term is not of the Fierz-Pauli type. There are only five degrees of freedom and the sixth degree of freedom associated with the Boulware-Deser ghost is constrained and replaced by mimetic matter to all orders. The van Dam-Veltman-Zakharov discontinuity is also absent. © 2018, The Author(s).