Lanczos equation on light-like hypersurfaces in a cosmologically viable class of kinetic gravity braiding theories

Abstract

We discuss junction conditions across null hypersurfaces in a class of scalar-tensor gravity theories with i) second order dynamics, ii) obeying the recent constraints imposed by gravitational wave propagation, and iii) allowing for a cosmologically viable evolution. These requirements select kinetic gravity braiding models with linear kinetic term dependence and scalar field-dependent coupling to curvature. We explore a pseudo-orthonormal tetrad and its allowed gauge fixing, with one null vector standing as the normal, the other being transversal to the hypersurface. We derive a generalization of the Lanczos equation in a 2+1 decomposed form, relating the energy density, current and isotropic pressure of a distributional source to the jumps in the transverse curvature and transverse derivative of the scalar. Additionally we discuss a scalar junction condition and its implications for the distributional source.