Einstein’s equations are derived from a linear theory in flat spacetime using free field gauge invariance and universal coupling. The gravitational potential can be either covariant or contravariant and of almost any density weight. These results are adapted to yield universally coupled massive variants of Einstein’s equations, yielding two one-parameter families of distinct theories with spin ...

A particular higher-derivative extension of the Einstein-Hilbert action in three spacetime dimensions is shown to be equivalent at the linearized level to the (unitary) Pauli-Fierz action for a massive spin-2 field. A more general model, which also includes "topologically-massive" gravity as a special case, propagates the two spin-2 helicity states with different masses. We discuss the extensio...

In this note we study the boundary conditions for the new massive gravity theory in asymptotically AdS3 spacetime. We find that the Brown-Henneaux boundary conditions are consistent with the new massive gravity for all any value of the mass parameter. At the critical point where the central charge vanishes, the conserved charges vanish, too. This confirms that the theory is trivial at the criti...

We consider the effect of quantum interactions on Pauli–Fierz massive gravity. With generic graviton cubic interactions, we observe that the 1loop counterterms do not conform to the tree level structure of Pauli–Fierz action, resulting in the reappearance of the sixth mode ghost. Then to explore the quantum effects to the full extent, we calculate the resummed graviton propagator with an arbitr...