272 research outputs found
Metric projective geometry, BGG detour complexes and partially massless gauge theories
A projective geometry is an equivalence class of torsion free connections
sharing the same unparametrised geodesics; this is a basic structure for
understanding physical systems. Metric projective geometry is concerned with
the interaction of projective and pseudo-Riemannian geometry. We show that the
BGG machinery of projective geometry combines with structures known as
Yang-Mills detour complexes to produce a general tool for generating invariant
pseudo-Riemannian gauge theories. This produces (detour) complexes of
differential operators corresponding to gauge invariances and dynamics. We
show, as an application, that curved versions of these sequences give geometric
characterizations of the obstructions to propagation of higher spins in
Einstein spaces. Further, we show that projective BGG detour complexes generate
both gauge invariances and gauge invariant constraint systems for partially
massless models: the input for this machinery is a projectively invariant gauge
operator corresponding to the first operator of a certain BGG sequence. We also
connect this technology to the log-radial reduction method and extend the
latter to Einstein backgrounds.Comment: 30 pages, LaTe
Projective BGG equations, algebraic sets, and compactifications of Einstein geometries
For curved projective manifolds we introduce a notion of a normal tractor
frame field, based around any point. This leads to canonical systems of
(redundant) coordinates that generalise the usual homogeneous coordinates on
projective space. These give preferred local maps to the model projective space
that encode geometric contact with the model to a level that is optimal, in a
suitable sense. In terms of the trivialisations arising from the special
frames, normal solutions of classes of natural linear PDE (so-called first BGG
equations) are shown to be necessarily polynomial in the generalised
homogeneous coordinates; the polynomial system is the pull back of a polynomial
system that solves the corresponding problem on the model. Thus questions
concerning the zero locus of solutions, as well as related finer geometric and
smooth data, are reduced to a study of the corresponding polynomial systems and
algebraic sets. We show that a normal solution determines a canonical manifold
stratification that reflects an orbit decomposition of the model. Applications
include the construction of structures that are analogues of Poincare-Einstein
manifolds.Comment: 22 page
Einstein metrics in projective geometry
It is well known that pseudo-Riemannian metrics in the projective class of a
given torsion free affine connection can be obtained from (and are equivalent
to) the solutions of a certain overdetermined projectively invariant
differential equation. This equation is a special case of a so-called first BGG
equation. The general theory of such equations singles out a subclass of
so-called normal solutions. We prove that non-degerate normal solutions are
equivalent to pseudo-Riemannian Einstein metrics in the projective class and
observe that this connects to natural projective extensions of the Einstein
condition.Comment: 10 pages. Adapted to published version. In addition corrected a minor
sign erro
A sub-product construction of Poincare-Einstein metrics
Given any two Einstein (pseudo-)metrics, with scalar curvatures suitably
related, we give an explicit construction of a Poincar\'e-Einstein
(pseudo-)metric with conformal infinity the conformal class of the product of
the initial metrics. We show that these metrics are equivalent to ambient
metrics for the given conformal structure. The ambient metrics have holonomy
that agrees with the conformal holonomy. In the generic case the ambient metric
arises directly as a product of the metric cones over the original Einstein
spaces. In general the conformal infinity of the Poincare metrics we construct
is not Einstein, and so this describes a class of non-conformally Einstein
metrics for which the (Fefferman-Graham) obstruction tensor vanishes.Comment: 23 pages Minor correction to section 5. References update
Higher Spin Gravitational Couplings and the Yang--Mills Detour Complex
Gravitational interactions of higher spin fields are generically plagued by
inconsistencies. We present a simple framework that couples higher spins to a
broad class of gravitational backgrounds (including Ricci flat and Einstein)
consistently at the classical level. The model is the simplest example of a
Yang--Mills detour complex, which recently has been applied in the mathematical
setting of conformal geometry. An analysis of asymptotic scattering states
about the trivial field theory vacuum in the simplest version of the theory
yields a rich spectrum marred by negative norm excitations. The result is a
theory of a physical massless graviton, scalar field, and massive vector along
with a degenerate pair of zero norm photon excitations. Coherent states of the
unstable sector of the model do have positive norms, but their evolution is no
longer unitary and their amplitudes grow with time. The model is of
considerable interest for braneworld scenarios and ghost condensation models,
and invariant theory.Comment: 19 pages LaTe
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