Non-linear parent action and dual gravity

Abstract

We give a reformulation of non-linear Einstein gravity, which contains the dual graviton together with the ordinary metric and a shift gauge field. The metric does not enter through a `kinetic' Einstein-Hilbert term, but via topological couplings, and so the theory does not lead to a doubling of degrees of freedom. The field equations take the form of first-order duality relations. We analyze the gauge symmetries and comment on their meaning with regard to the E11 proposal.

15 pages, v2: version to appear in Phys.Rev.D, v3: typos corrected, footnote added after equations (3.31)-(3.32) with a reference to [7], v4: note added in introduction stating the equivalence of the field equations following from our action to those given previously by West in [7]