https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-08568-6
Regular Article – Theoretical Physics
A note on the total action of 4D Gauss–Bonnet theory
Department of Physics and Astronomy, National Institute of Technology Rourkela, 769008, Rourkela, India
Received:
14
May
2020
Accepted:
18
October
2020
Published online:
27
October
2020
Recently, a novel four-dimensional Gauss–Bonnet theory has been suggested as a limiting case of the original D-dimensional theory with singular Gauss–Bonnet coupling constant 
. The theory is proposed at the level of field equations. Here we analyse this theory at the level of action. We find that the on-shell action and surface terms split into parts, one of which does not scale like 
. The limiting 
procedure, therefore, gives unphysical divergences in the on-shell action and surface terms in four dimensions. We further highlight various issues related to the computation of counterterms in this theory.
© The Author(s) 2020
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