Faddeev–Jackiw Hamiltonian formulation for general exotic bi-gravity

Abstract

General exotic bi-gravity, obtained in Ozkan et al. (Phys Rev Lett 123(3):031303, 2019), is a unitary parity-preserving model which describes two interacting spin-two fields in three-dimensional spacetime. Adopting a symplectic viewpoint, we investigate the dynamical structure of general exotic bi-gravity theory. In particular, by exploiting the properties of the corresponding pre-symplectic matrix and its associated zero-modes, we explicitly derive all constraints of the theory, including the integrability conditions and scalar relationships between all the parameters and fields defining the model. Then, as an application, these scalar relationships are used for studying the anti-de Sitter background. After that, we derive the gauge transformations for the dynamical variables from the structure of the remaining zero-modes, meaning that such zero-modes are indeed the generators of the gauge symmetry of the theory. Finally, by switching off one of the four coupling constants $$\beta _{n}$$ β n and assuming the invertibility of some of the dreibeins, we find that the general exotic bi-gravity theory has two physical degrees of freedom.