Cosmological Classicalization: Maintaining Unitarity under Relevant Deformations of the Einstein-Hilbert Action

Abstract: Generic relevant deformations of Einstein's gravity theory contain additional degrees of freedom that have a multi-facetted stabilization dynamics on curved spacetimes. We show that these relevant degrees of freedom are self-protected against unitarity violations by the formation of classical field lumps that eventually merge to a new background geometry. The transition is heralded by the massive decay of the original vacuum and evolves through a strong coupling regime. This process fits in the recently proposed classicalization mechanism and extends it further to free field dynamics on curved backgrounds.