The two ways of gauging the Poincare' group

Abstract

A description of how a theory of gravity can be considered as a gauge theory (in the sense of Trautman) of the Poincare' group is given. As a result, it is shown that a gauge theory of this kind is consistent with the Equivalence Principle only if the Lagrangian and the constraints are preserved not only by the gauge transformations but also by an additional family of transformations, called "pseudo-translations". Explicit expressions of pseudo-translations and of their action on gravitational gauge fields are given. They are expected to be useful for geometric interpretations of their analogues in supergravity theories.