Matter coupling to degenerate spacetimes in first order gravity

Abstract

We develop a systematic study of the equations of motion in the first order gravity with matter fields for degenerate metrics. Like the Hilbert-Palatini action functional for pure gravity, the action functionals for matter fields used are first order. These are defined for both invertible and non- invertible metrics. Description for invertible metrics is equivalent to second order gravity theory with matter. For degenerate metrics the theory describes a different phase. The analysis for tetrads with one zero eigen value in theory with scalar, Abelian vector gauge and fermion matter fields is presented in detail.