Aspects of Conformal Gravity and Double Field Theory from a Double Copy Map

Abstract

Double Field Theory (DFT) can be constructed as the double copy of a Yang-Mills theory. In this work we extend this statement by including higher-derivative terms. Starting from a four-derivative extension of Yang-Mills whose double copy is known to correspond to a conformal-gravity theory, we obtain a four-derivative theory formulated in double space, which in the pure gravity limit reduces to conformal gravity at quadratic order. This result reveals important aspects for the study of conformal symmetry in the context of DFT through double copy maps.