Towards an invariant geometry of double field theory

We introduce a geometrical framework for double field theory in which generalized Riemann and torsion tensors are defined without reference to a particular basis. This invariant geometry provides a unifying framework for the frame-like and metric-like formulations developed before. We discuss the re...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hohm, Olaf, Zwiebach, Barton
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Theoretical Physics
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: American Institute of Physics (AIP) 2014
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/88685
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6504-3210
Description
Summary:We introduce a geometrical framework for double field theory in which generalized Riemann and torsion tensors are defined without reference to a particular basis. This invariant geometry provides a unifying framework for the frame-like and metric-like formulations developed before. We discuss the relation to generalized geometry and give an “index-free” proof of the algebraic Bianchi identity. Finally, we analyze to what extent the generalized Riemann tensor encodes the curvatures of Riemannian geometry. We show that it contains the conventional Ricci tensor and scalar curvature but not the full Riemann tensor, suggesting the possibility of a further extension of this framework.