Symmetries in Cartan’s formalism: A review with examples

Abstract

We review an algorithm, in the context of gauge and gravity theories described by differential forms, to read off the symmetries of a physical system out of its action, which was originally proposed in [C. Corral and Y. Bonder, Symmetry algebra in gauge theories of gravity, Class. Quantum Grav. 36 (2019) 045002]. In particular, we study the interplay between gauge symmetries and a gauge-covariant version of diffeomorphisms dubbed local translations. We focus on the role of boundary terms and conserved charges that were not discussed in the original proposal. We provide a review of the formalism and analyze several examples of classical theories, including gauge theories coupled to matter fields in flat space and gravitational theories in different dimensions.