Related papers: Gravity and Mirror Gravity in Plebanski Formulatio…
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…
The geometric trinity of gravity comprises three distinct formulations of general relativity: (i) the standard formulation describing gravity in terms of spacetime curvature, (ii) the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity describing…
General Relativity is usually formulated as a theory with gauge invariance under the diffeomorphism group, but there is a 'dilaton' formulation where it is in addition invariant under Weyl transformations, and a 'unimodular' formulation…
We revise the classical continuum formulation behind the Spin Foam approach to the quantization of gravity. Based on the recent applications of the current EPRL-FK model beyond triangulations, we identify the tension with the implementation…
By Magri's theorem the bi-Hamiltonian structure of Plebanski's second heavenly equation proves that (anti)-self-dual gravity is a completely integrable system in four dimensions.
Recently, gravitational gauge theories with torsion have been discussed by an increasing number of authors from a classical as well as from a quantum field theoretical point of view. The Einstein-Cartan(-Sciama-Kibble) Lagrangian has been…
According to the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity, curvature and torsion are two equivalent ways of describing the same gravitational field. Despite equivalent, however, they act differently: whereas curvature yields a…
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…
Working in the first order formalism of gravity, we propose an action that combines the self and anti-self-dual parts of the curvature and comprises all the diffeomorphism invariant Lagrangians that one can consider in this formalism. The…
We propose a first-order geometric Lagrangian for four-dimensional conformal gravity within the Cartan formulation, which yields, dynamically, the standard constraints on the fields, expected for conformal gravity. Upon imposing the…
By generalizing the Hodge dual operator to the case of soldered bundles, and working in the context of the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity, an analysis of the duality symmetry in gravitation is performed. Although the basic…
It is shown that modified gravity theories with a Lagrangian composed of the three quadratic invariants of the Riemann curvature tensor are not appropriate. The field equations are either incompatible and/or irregular [like f(R)-gravities],…
A complete geometric unification of gravity and electromagnetism is proposed by considering two aspects of torsion: its relation to spin established in Einstein--Cartan theory and the possible interpretation of the torsion trace as the…
We use a description based on differential forms to systematically explore the space of scalar-tensor theories of gravity. Within this formalism, we propose a basis for the scalar sector at the lowest order in derivatives of the field and…
We study the Hamiltonian formulation of Plebanski theory in both the Euclidean and Lorentzian cases. A careful analysis of the constraints shows that the system is non regular, i.e. the rank of the Dirac matrix is non-constant on the…
The equations of motion describing all physical systems, except gravity, remain invariant if a constant is added to the Lagrangian. In the conventional approach, gravitational theories break this symmetry exhibited by all other physical…
We analyze the construction of conformal theories of gravity in the realm of teleparallel theories. We first present a family of conformal theories which are quadratic in the torsion tensor and are constructed out of the tetrad field and of…
We set up an Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet theory in four dimensions, based on the recent formulation of pure gravity with extra dimensions of vanishing metrical length [1]. In absence of torsion, the effective field equations depend only on the…
Starting from the new minimal multiplet of supergravity in $2+2$ dimensions, we construct two types of self-dual supergravity theories. One of them involves a self-duality condition on the Riemann curvature and implies the equations of…
We show that self-dual gravity in Euclidean four-dimensional Anti-de Sitter space (AdS$_4$) can be described by a minimally coupled scalar field with a cubic interaction written in terms of a deformed Poisson bracket, providing a remarkably…