Five dimensional Chern–Simons gravity for the expanded (anti)-de Sitter gauge group $${\hbox {C}}_5$$ C5

Abstract

Abstract We study the Hamiltonian dynamics of a five-dimensional Chern–Simons theory for the gauge algebra $$C_5$$ C5 of Izaurieta, Rodriguez and Salgado, the so-called $$\hbox {S}_H$$ SH -expansão of the 5D (anti-)de Sitter algebra (a)ds, based on the cyclic group $${\mathbb {Z}}_4$$ Z4 . The theory consists of a 1-form field containing the (a)ds gravitation variables and 1-form field transforming in the adjoint representation of (a)ds. The gravitational part of the action necessarily contains a term quadratic in the curvature, beyond the Einstein–Hilbert and cosmological terms, for any choice of the two independent coupling constants. The total action is also invariant under a new local symmetry, called “crossed diffeomorphisms”, beyond the usual space-time diffeomorphisms. The number of physical degrees of freedom is computed. The theory is shown to be “generic” in the sense of Bañados, Garay and Henneaux, i.e., the constraint associated to the time diffeomorphisms is not independent from the other constraints.