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arXiv · 1208.1307

Partial Masslessness and Conformal Gravity

S. Deser·E. Joung·A. Waldron
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Abstract

We use conformal, but ghostful, Weyl gravity to study its ghost-free, second derivative, partially massless (PM) spin 2 component in presence of Einstein gravity with positive cosmological constant. Specifically, we consider both gravitational- and self- interactions of PM via the fully non-linear factorization of conformal gravity's Bach tensor into Einstein times Schouten operators. We find that extending PM beyond linear order suffers from familiar higher-spin consistency obstructions: it propagates only in Einstein backgrounds, and the conformal gravity route generates only the usual safe, Noether, cubic order vertices.

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S. Deser, E. Joung, A. Waldron. 2012-08-07. Partial Masslessness and Conformal Gravity. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.86.104004

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