Stability and superluminality of spherical DBI Galileon solutions

Abstract

The Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) Galileons are a generalization of the Galileon terms, which extend the internal Galilean symmetry to an internal relativistic symmetry, and can also be thought of as generalizations of DBI which yield second order field equations. We show that, when considered as local modifications to gravity, such as in the Solar System, there exists a region of parameter space in which spherically symmetric static solutions exist and are stable. However, these solutions always exhibit superluminality, casting doubt on the existence of a standard Lorentz invariant UV completion.