Hyperbolicity and Causality of Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet Gravity in Warped Product Spacetimes

Abstract: In Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity, for a group of warped product spacetimes, we get a generalized master equation for the perturbation of tensor type. We show that the "effective metric" or "acoustic metric" for the tensor perturbation equation can be defined even without a static condition. Since this master equation does not depend on the mode expansion, the hyperbolicity and causality of the tensor perturbation equation can be investigated for every mode of the perturbation. Based on the master equation, we study the hyperbolicity and causality for all relavent vacuum solutions of this theory. For each solution, we give the exact hyperbolic condition of the tensor perturbation equations. Our approach can also applied to dynamical spacetimes, and Vaidya spacetime have been investigated as an example.