Massive Gravity in Three Dimensions

Eric A. Bergshoeff, Olaf Hohm, Paul K. Townsend

Published 2009-01-13, updated 2009-05-05Version 3

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 extension to massive ${\cal N}$-extended supergravity, and we present a `cosmological' extension that admits an anti-de Sitter vacuum.