Related papers: On the Relations between Gravity and BF Theories
Quadratic gravity in two dimensions can be formulated as a Background Field (BF) theory plus an interaction term which is polynomial in both, the gauge and Background fields. This formulation is similar to the one given by Freidel and…
We introduce a new spinorial, BF-like action for the Einstein gravity. This is a first, up to our knowledge, 2-form action which describes the real, Lorentzian gravity and uses only the self-dual connection. In the generic case, the…
We investigate a formulation of continuum 4d gravity in terms of a constrained BF theory, in the spirit of the Plebanski formulation, but involving only linear constraints, of the type used recently in the spin foam approach to quantum…
We quickly review the current status of gravitational duality in General Relativity. We summarize and comment some recent work on constructing dual (topological) charges and understanding how this duality acts in supergravity theories.
It is shown, at the level of the classical action, that the Wess-Zumino-Witten-Novikov model is equivalent to a combined BF theory and a Chern-Simons action in the presence of a unique boundary term. This connection relies on the techniques…
A new direction to understand gravity has recently been explored by considering classical gravity to be a derived interaction from an underlying theory. This underlying theory would involve new degrees of freedom at a deeper level and it…
We discuss a class of teleparallel scalar-torsion theories of gravity, which is parametrized by five free functions of the scalar field. The theories are formulated covariantly using a flat, but non-vanishing spin connection. We show how…
We describe and study a certain class of modified gravity theories. Our starting point is Plebanski formulation of gravity in terms of a triple B^i of 2-forms, a connection A^i and a ``Lagrange multiplier'' field Psi^ij. The generalization…
We discuss the formulation of the CGHS model in terms of a topological BF theory coupled to particles carrying non-Abelian charge.
We present a theory of four-dimensional quantum gravity with massive gravitons which may be essentially renormalizable. In the Plebanski formulation of General Relativity (GR), in which the tetrads, the connection and the curvature are all…
In the present paper we will investigate the relation between scalar-tensor theory and $f(R)$ theories of gravity. Such studies have been performed in the past for the metric formalism of $f(R)$ gravity; here we will consider mainly the…
Various Hamiltonian formulations of f(R) gravity can be found in the literature. Some authors follow the Ostrogradsky treatment of higher derivative theories and introduce as extra variables first order time derivatives of the metric…
We consider two BF formulations of the theory of gravity with a negative cosmological constant, of Plebanski and of MacDowell-Mansouri. Both give the standard Einstein equations in the bulk but differ in expressions of edge charges. We…
This is a PhD thesis on a categorical generalization of the $BF$ model called the $BFCG$ theory. The new theory is equivalent to General Relativity at the classical level but, at the quantum level, seeks to address the problem of the…
In the context of field theory two elements seem to be necessary to search for strong-weak coupling duality. First, a gauge theory formulation and second, supersymmetry. For gravitation these two elements are present in MacDowell-Mansouri…
A general paradigm for describing classical (and semiclassical) gravity is presented. This approach brings to the centre-stage a holographic relationship between the bulk and surface terms in a general class of action functionals and…
We study 2+1 Chern-Simons gravity at the classical action level. In particular we rederive the linear combinations of the ``standard'' and ``exotic'' Einstein actions, from the (anti) self-duality of the ``internal'' Lorentzian indices. The…
We point out that there exists a family of transformations acting on BF-type Lagrangians of gravity, with Lagrangians related by such a transformation corresponding to classically equivalent theories. A transformation of this type…
A brief discussion is made about the relevance of surface terms in the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations of theories of gravity. These surface terms play an important role in the variation of the action integral and in the definition…
We review different approaches to the Hamiltonian analysis of teleparallel theories of gravity. In particular the Hamiltonian analysis for $f(\mathbb{T})$ theories led to disputed results in the literature. The aim of this review is to…