On the stability of Einsteinian cubic gravity black holes in EFT

Abstract

Abstract In this note we revisit the analysis performed in De Felice and Tsujikawa (2023 Phys. Lett. B 843 138047) of odd-parity perturbations around static and spherically symmetric black holes in Einsteinian cubic gravity (ECG). We show that the additional propagating modes always have masses much above the cutoff of the theory. Therefore, contrary to what is claimed in that paper, the ECG black holes remain stable within the effective field theory regime. We consider the same analysis for a general cubic theory, showing that the ECG results are not special in this regard. We use the occasion to make some clarifications on the role, uses and limitations of ECG and its generalizations.