https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-025-14274-y
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Topological symmetry-restored phase of gravity
1
Institute of Contemporary Mathematics, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Henan University, 475004, Kaifeng, Henan, People’s Republic of China
2
Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Campus da Praia Vermelha, Av. Litorânea s/n, 24210-346, Niterói, RJ, Brazil
Received:
6
September
2024
Accepted:
4
May
2025
Published online:
28
June
2025
In this work, we propose a topological quantum field theory phase for four-dimensional gravity. We show it is able to generate, not only General Relativity, but the whole family of Lovelock–Cartan theories of gravity. This is accomplished due to the existence of a topological symmetry which, when explicitly broken via the introduction of a mass scale, releases the local degrees of freedom of gravity. Additionally, we introduce an extended notion of the (anti-)self-dual Landau gauge conditions to evaluate the Ward identities, counterterms, and prove the quantum stability of the model, to all orders in perturbation theory, using the algebraic renormalization technique.
© The Author(s) 2025
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