The auxiliary-deformed Breitenlhoner-Maison model: duality frames and higher-dimensional origin

The two-dimensional Breitenlohner-Maison (BM) model is a classically integrable subsector of $D=4$ general relativity endowed with two commuting Killing isometries, obtained via Kaluza-Klein reduction to $D=2$. Integrable deformations of such a theory have recently been constructed via auxiliary fields in the so-called $\nu$-frame. In this work we first extend this point of view by deriving the complementary auxiliary field perspective known as $\mu$-frame, and then explicitly construct the uplift to $D=4$ of both descriptions, relying on an ansatz inspired by duality-invariant Lagrangian formulations of Einstein theory. The resulting four-dimensional deformed model thus obtained is a higher-derivative theory which lacks manifest diffeomorphism invariance in both frames. We comment on possible resolutions of this puzzling feature and on the physical interpretation of the model in $D=4$.