Metric approach to a $$ \mathrm{T}\overline{\mathrm{T}} $$-like deformation in arbitrary dimensions

Abstract

Abstract We consider a one-parameter family of composite fields — bi-linear in the components of the stress-energy tensor — which generalise the $$ \mathrm{T}\overline{\mathrm{T}} $$ T T ¯ operator to arbitrary space-time dimension d ≥ 2. We show that they induce a deformation of the classical action which is equivalent — at the level of the dynamics — to a field-dependent modification of the background metric tensor according to a specific flow equation. Even though the starting point is the flat space, the deformed metric is generally curved for any d > 2, thus implying that the corresponding deformation can not be interpreted as a coordinate transformation. The central part of the paper is devoted to the development of a recursive algorithm to compute the coefficients of the power series expansion of the solution to the metric flow equation. We show that, under some quite restrictive assumptions on the stress-energy tensor, the power series yields an exact solution. Finally, we consider a class of theories in d = 4 whose stress-energy tensor fulfils the assumptions above mentioned, namely the family of abelian gauge theories in d = 4. For such theories, we obtain the exact expression of the deformed metric and the vierbein. In particular, the latter result implies that ModMax theory in a specific curved space is dynamically equivalent to its Born-Infeld-like extension in flat space. We also discuss a dimensional reduction of the latter theories from d = 4 to d = 2 in which an interesting marginal deformation of d = 2 field theories emerges.