$n$-DBI gravity is a gravitational theory which yields near de Sitter inflation spontaneously at the cost of breaking Lorentz invariance by a preferred choice of foliation. We show that this breakdown endows $n$-DBI gravity with one extra physical gravitational degree of freedom: a scalar graviton. Its existence is established by Dirac’s theory of constrained systems. First, studying scalar perturbations around Minkowski space-time, we show that there exists one scalar degree of freedom and identify it in terms of the metric perturbations. Then, a general analysis is made in the canonical formalism, using Arnowitt-Deser-Misner variables. It is useful to introduce an auxiliary scalar field, which allows recasting $n$-DBI gravity in an Einstein-Hilbert form but in a Jordan frame. Identifying the constraints and their classes we confirm the existence of an extra degree of freedom in the full theory, besides the two usual tensorial modes of the graviton. We then argue that, unlike the case of (the original proposal for) Hořava-Lifschitz gravity, there is no evidence that the extra degree of freedom originates pathologies, such as vanishing lapse, instabilities, and strong self-coupling at low energy scales.

• Received 4 June 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.86.064009