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Abstract

Theories of spin-2 fields take on a particular role in modern physics. They do not only describe the mediation of gravity, the only theory of fundamental interactions of which no quantum field theoretical description exists, it furthermore was thought that they necessarily predict massless gauge bosons. Just recently, a consistent theory of a massive graviton was constructed and, subsequently, generalized to a bimetric theory of two interacting spin-2 fields. This thesis studies both the viability and consequences at cosmological scales in massive gravity as well as bimetric theories. We show that all consistent models that are free of gradient and ghost instabilities behave like the cosmological standard model, LCDM. In addition, we construct a new theory of massive gravity which is stable at both classical background and quantum level, even though it suffers from the Boulware-Deser ghost.