Classification of generalized quasitopological gravities

Abstract

Generalized quasitopological gravities (GQTGs) are higher-order extensions of Einstein gravity in $D$ dimensions satisfying a number of interesting properties, such as possessing second-order linearized equations of motion on top of maximally symmetric backgrounds, admitting nonhairy generalizations of the Schwarzschild-Tangherlini black hole which are characterized by a single metric function or forming a perturbative spanning set of the space of effective theories of gravity. In this work, we classify all inequivalent GQTGs at all curvature orders $n$ and spacetime dimension $D\ensuremath{\ge}4$. This is achieved after the explicit construction of a dictionary that allows the uplift of expressions evaluated on a single-function static and spherically symmetric ansatz into fully covariant ones. On the one hand, applying such prescription for $D\ensuremath{\ge}5$, we find the explicit covariant form of the unique inequivalent quasitopological gravity that exists at each $n$ and, for the first time, the covariant expressions of the $n\ensuremath{-}2$ inequivalent proper GQTGs existing at every curvature order $n$. On the other hand, for $D=4$, we are able to provide the first rigorous proof of the fact that there is one, and only one, (proper) inequivalent GQTG at each curvature order $n$, deriving along the way a simple expression for such four-dimensional representative at every order $n$.