Higher Order Perturbations Around Backgrounds with One Non-Homogeneous Dimension

It is shown that perturbations around backgrounds with one non-homogeneous dimension, namely of co-homogeneity 1, can be canonically simplified, a property that is shown to hold to any order in perturbation theory. Recalling that the problem naturally reduces to 1d, a procedure is described whereby for each gauge function in 1d two 1d fields are eliminated from the action – one is gauge and can be eliminated without a constraint and the other is auxiliary. These results generalize the results of hep-th/0609001 from linear to non-linear perturbations and they unify two cases of physical interest: cosmological perturbations and perturbations to static spherically symmetric backgrounds. An application to black strings is discussed in some detail.