Galileons with Gauge Symmetries

Abstract

Galileon models arise in certain braneworld scenarios as modifications to General Relativity, and are also interesting as field theories in their own right. We show how the galileon model can be naturally generalized to include local gauge symmetries, by allowing for couplings to Yang-Mills fields. The resulting theories have at most second order spacetime derivatives in any representation of the gauge group, thereby avoiding Ostrogradski ghosts. We also extend the models to include curved space, and show how in that case we need to include non-minimal couplings between the galileons and the curvature tensors for the theory to retain its second order nature.