Chern-Simons action and the Carrollian Cotton tensors

Abstract In three-dimensional pseudo-Riemannian manifolds, the Cotton tensor arises as the variation of the gravitational Chern-Simons action with respect to the metric. It is Weyl-covariant, symmetric, traceless and covariantly conserved. Performing a reduction of the Cotton tensor with respect to...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Olivera Mišković, Rodrigo Olea, P. Marios Petropoulos, David Rivera-Betancour, Konstantinos Siampos
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SpringerOpen 2023-12-01
Series:Journal of High Energy Physics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP12(2023)130
Description
Summary:Abstract In three-dimensional pseudo-Riemannian manifolds, the Cotton tensor arises as the variation of the gravitational Chern-Simons action with respect to the metric. It is Weyl-covariant, symmetric, traceless and covariantly conserved. Performing a reduction of the Cotton tensor with respect to Carrollian diffeomorphisms in a suitable frame, one discloses four sets of Cotton Carrollian relatives, which are conformal and obey Carrollian conservation equations. Each set of Carrollian Cotton tensors is alternatively obtained as the variation of a distinct Carroll-Chern-Simons action with respect to the degenerate metric and the clock form of a strong Carroll structure. The four Carroll-Chern-Simons actions emerge in the Carrollian reduction of the original Chern-Simons ascendant. They inherit its anomalous behaviour under diffeomorphisms and Weyl transformations. The extremums of these Carrollian actions are commented and illustrated.
ISSN:1029-8479