New ghost-free extensions of general relativity

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Abstract
The method of algebraic extension is shown to yield a large class of gravitational theories which are extensions of general relativity. Requiring positivity of energy in the flat-space limit of such theories provides some constraints, but a large set of theories of potential phenomenological interest survives this condition. Explicit examples of such theories include the non-symmetric gravitational theory of Moffat, algebraically extended Hilbert gravity and a one-parameter family of theories with dynamical torsion. In general such theories do not alter general relativistic post-Newtonian predictions for time delay experiments; rather they alter the non-linearities of the post-Newtonian gravitational potential. Such effects may be probed by measuring periastron shifts, as in the eclipsing binary systems Di Her and AS Cam, as well as in the binary pulsar PSR 1913+16.