Acausality and Nonunique Evolution in Generalized Teleparallel Gravity

Abstract

We show the existence of physical superluminal modes and acausality in the Brans-Dicke type of extension of teleparallel gravity that includes F(T) gravity and teleparallel dark energy as special cases. We derive the characteristic hypersurface for the extra degrees of freedom in the theory, thereby showing that the time evolution is not unique and closed causal curves can appear. Furthermore, we present a concrete disastrous solution in Bianchi type I spacetime, in which the anisotropy in expansion can be any function of time, and thus anisotropy can emerge suddenly, a simple demonstration that the theory is physically problematic.