Extended massive gravity in three dimensions

Using a first order Chern-Simons-like formulation of gravity we systematically construct higher-derivative extensions of general relativity in three dimensions. The construction ensures that the resulting higher-derivative gravity theories are free of scalar ghosts. We canonically analyze these theories and construct the gauge generators and the boundary central charges. The models we construct are all consistent with a holographic c -theorem which, however, does not imply that they are unitary. We find that Born-Infeld gravity in three dimensions is contained within these models as a subclass

Logarithmic AdS waves and Zwei-Dreibein gravity

We show that the parameter space of Zwei-Dreibein Gravity (ZDG) in AdS 3 exhibits critical points, where massive graviton modes coincide with pure gauge modes and new ‘logarithmic’ modes appear, similar to what happens in New Massive Gravity. The existence of critical points is shown both at the linearized level, as well as by finding AdS wave solutions of the full non-linear theory, that behave as logarithmic modes towards the AdS boundary. In order to find these solutions explicitly, we give a reformulation of ZDG in terms of a single Dreibein, that involves an infinite number of derivatives. At the critical points, ZDG can be conjectured to be dual to a logarithmic conformal field theory with zero central charges, characterized by new anomalies whose conjectured values are calculated

Interacting spin-2 fields in three dimensions

Using the frame formulation of multi-gravity in three dimensions, we show that demanding the presence of secondary constraints which remove the Boulware-Deser ghosts restricts the possible interaction terms of the theory and identifies invertible frame field combinations whose effective metric may consistently couple to matter. The resulting ghost-free theories can be represented by theory graphs which are trees. In the case of three frame fields, we explicitly show that the requirement of positive masses and energies for the bulk spin-2 modes in AdS 3 is consistent with a positive central charge for the putative dual CFT 2