Strong-coupling of Minkowski spacetime in $f(R)$ gravity: a Hamiltonian perspective

Abstract

A Hamiltonian analysis of $f(R)$ gravity in the perturbation field approximation is performed. The action principle is presented as a series expansion around a generic fixed background with constant scalar curvature $R_{0}$, then we restrict the theory to maximally symmetric spaces, later we recast the action by selecting $R_{0}=0$, i.e., by choosing Minkowski as the background. The Hamiltonian formulation is constructed by following the appropriate methods to approach higher-order systems. The constraint structure is identified for several cases that arise depending on imposed conditions on the values of the function $f(R)$ and its derivatives, classification of constraints allows to make a proper count of degrees of freedom for each case, at the end we confirm the spectrum behaviour of $f(R)$ gravity around Minkowski spacetime that has been reported by another means in the recent literature.