Tensor Perturbations and Thick Branes in Higher Dimensional Gauss-Bonnet Gravity

Abstract

A thick brane model with Gauss-Bonnet action in a homogeneous anisotropic $D=(4+1+d)$ spacetime is studied. By choosing a concrete metric ansatz, we show that this spacetime is stable against linear tensor perturbations under certain conditions. The graviton zero modes are also given. Besides, we examine a particular example in six-dimensional spacetime with a given warp factor. The coupled background scalar field and its potential are solved analytically. Furthermore, the effective potential of the Kaluza-Klein modes of the graviton is also discussed. We found that the effective potential can have singularities under certain conditions, which are related to the non-differentiability of the graviton zero modes.