Particle Content of Quadratic and $f(R_{\mu \nu \sigma \rho })$ Theories in $(A)dS$

Abstract

We perform a complete decoupling of the degrees of freedom of quadratic gravity and the generic $f(R_{\mu \nu \sigma \rho })$ theory about any one of their possible vacua, i.e. maximally symmetric solution, find the masses of the spin-2 and spin-0 modes in explicit forms.

Comments: 7 pages, reference added; v3 typos corrected, to appear in PRD Rapid Communication