English

Manifest duality and Lorentz covariance for linearised gravity as edge modes

High Energy Physics - Theory 2026-04-16 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

We present the first formulation of linearised gravity in four dimensions which is manifestly Lorentz covariant and democratic, i.e. treats the two frames related by electric-magnetic duality on equal footing. It is well-known that four-dimensional linearised gravity belongs to a class of singleton representations of the four-dimensional conformal algebra so(2,4)\mathfrak{so}(2,4). Our key insight is viewing this algebra as the isometry of AdS5\text{AdS}_5 and realising the massless spin-2 field as an edge mode of a five-dimensional topological field taking values in a specific finite-dimensional representation of so(2,4)\mathfrak{so}(2,4). The desired four-dimensional action is then found by a covariant boundary reduction procedure.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.11884,
  title  = {Manifest duality and Lorentz covariance for linearised gravity as edge modes},
  author = {Calvin Y. -R. Chen and Euihun Joung and Karapet Mkrtchyan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.11884},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

6 pages + appendix; v2: formatting fixed