Degrees of Freedom in Massive Gravity

Abstract

We study in a systematic way a generic nonderivative (massive) deformation of general relativity using the Hamiltonian formalism. The number of propagating degrees of freedom is analyzed in a nonperturbative and background independent way. We show that the condition of having only five propagating degrees of freedom can be cast in a set of differential equations for the deforming potential. Though the conditions are rather restrictive, many solutions can be found.