Modes of log gravity

Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. The MIT Faculty has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. The physical modes of a recently proposed D-dimensional ''critical gravity'', linearized about its anti-de Sitter vacuum, are investigated. All ''log mode'' solutions, which we categorize as ''spin-2'' or ''Proca'', arise as limits of the massive spin-2 modes of the noncritical theory. The linearized Einstein tensor of a spin-2 log mode is itself a 'nongauge' solution of the linearized Einstein equations whereas the linearized Einstein tensor of a Proca mode takes the form of a linearized general coordinate transformation. Our results suggest the existence of a holographically dual logarithmic conformal field theory.