title: Island of stability for consistent deformations of Einstein's gravity.
abstract: We construct deformations of general relativity that are consistent and phenomenologically viable, since they respect, in particular, cosmological backgrounds. These deformations have unique symmetries in accordance with their Minkowski cousins (Fierz-Pauli theory for massive gravitons) and incorporate a background curvature induced self-stabilizing mechanism. Self-stabilization is essential in order to guarantee hyperbolic evolution in and unitarity of the covariantized theory, as well as the deformation's uniqueness. We show that the deformation's parameter space contains islands of absolute stability that are persistent through the entire cosmic evolution.
authors.affiliation: Arnold Sommerfeld Center, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Theresienstraße 37, 80333 München, Germany. felix.berkhahn@physik.lmu.de
authors.forename: Felix
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Berkhahn
authors.forename: Dennis D
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Dietrich
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hofmann
authors.forename: Florian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Kühnel
authors.forename: Parvin
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Moyassari