Related papers: Comments on Joint Terms in Gravitational Action
A general $f(\mathcal{R})$ gravitational theory is considered within the Palatini formalism. By applying the variational principle and the usual conditions on the boundary, we show explicitly that a surface term remains such that as in…
A variational principle is constructed for gravity coupled to an asymptotically linear dilaton and a p-form field strength. This requires the introduction of appropriate surface terms -- also known as `boundary counterterms' -- in the…
We investigate the variational principle for the gravitational field in the presence of thin shells of completely unconstrained signature (generic shells). Such variational formulations have been given before for shells of timelike and null…
It is common knowledge that the Einstein-Hilbert action does not furnish a well-posed variational principle. The usual solution to this problem is to add an extra boundary term to the action, called a counter-term, so that the variational…
The variational principle for a thin dust shell in General Relativity is constructed. The principle is compatible with the boundary-value problem of the corresponding Euler-Lagrange equations, and leads to ``natural boundary conditions'' on…
A well-defined variational principle for gravitational actions typically requires to cancel boundary terms produced by the variation of the bulk action with a suitable set of boundary counterterms. This can be achieved by carefully…
The main goal of this paper is to get in a straightforward form the field equations in metric f(R) gravity, using elementary variational principles and adding a boundary term in the action, instead of the usual treatment in an equivalent…
We discuss the general properties of the theory of joint invariants of a smooth Lie group action in a manifold. Many of the known results about differential invariants, including Lie's finiteness theorem, have simpler versions in the…
It is shown that when in a higher order variational principle one fixes fields at the boundary leaving the field derivatives unconstrained, then the variational principle (in particular the solution space) is not invariant with respect to…
In this review we consider first order gravity in four dimensions. In particular, we focus our attention in formulations where the fundamental variables are a tetrad $e_a^I$ and a SO(3,1) connection ${\omega_{aI}}^J$. We study the most…
When generalizing the principle of least action for fields containing higher order derivatives, in general, it is not possible not to take into account the surface integrated term since it gives direct contribution to the forms of the…
We consider $f(R)$ gravity and Born-Infeld-Einstein (BIE) gravity in formulations where the metric and connection are treated independently and integrate out the metric to find the corresponding models solely in terms of the connection, the…
It is well-known that the presence of a spacetime boundary requires the conventional Einstein-Hilbert (EH) action to be supplemented by the Gibbons-Hawking (GH) boundary term in order to retain the standard variational procedure. When the…
A generalization to the Gibbons-Hawking-York boundary term for metric $f(R)$ gravity theories is introduced. A redefinition of the Gibbons-Hawking-York term is proposed. The proposed new definition is used to derive a consistent set of…
The effective action of string theory on a spacetime manifold with boundary has both bulk and boundary terms. We propose that both bulk and boundary actions, may be found by imposing the effective action to be invariant under the gauge…
We propose a boundary action to complement the recently developed duality manifest actions in string and M-theory using generalized geometry. This boundary action combines the Gibbons-Hawking term with boundary pieces that were previously…
We find the most general solution to Chern-Simons AdS$_3$ gravity in Fefferman-Graham gauge. The connections are equivalent to geometries that have a non-trivial curved boundary, characterized by a 2-dimensional vielbein and a spin…
We study the problem of boundary terms and boundary conditions for Chern-Simons gravity in five dimensions. We show that under reasonable boundary conditions one finds an effective field theory at the four-dimensional boundary described by…
A variational principle for gauge theories of gravity is presented, which maintains manifest covariance under the symmetries to which the action is invariant, throughout the calculation of the equations of motion and conservation laws. This…
We study the conditions of integrability when the boundary terms are considered in the variation of the geometric contribution of the Einstein-Hilbert action. We explore the emergent physical dynamics that is obtained when we make a…