Alternative self-dual gravity in eight dimensions

Abstract

We develop an alternative Ashtekar formalism in eight dimensions. In fact, using a MacDowell–Mansouri physical framework and a self-dual curvature symmetry, we propose an action in eight dimensions in which the Levi-Civita tenor with eight indices plays a key role. We explicitly show that such an action contains number of linear, quadratic and cubic terms in the Riemann tensor, Ricci tensor and scalar curvature. In particular, the linear term is reduced to the Einstein–Hilbert action with cosmological constant in eight dimensions. We prove that such a reduced action is equivalent to the Lovelock action in eight dimensions.