Scaling symmetry and Carrollian gravity

A

bstract

We formulate matter-coupled scaling-Carroll gravity as a gauge theory and develop a conformal construction for generating local Carroll-invariant couplings. The construction relaxes Carrollian special conformal symmetry and leads to an enlarged gravity multiplet. After fixing the scaling symmetry, the theory is governed by the trace of the extrinsic curvature, the Carroll boost symmetry, a vector field descending from dilatation, and a symmetric tensor originating from the Carroll boost connection. The vector field acquires a Stückelberg-like transformation under Carroll boosts proportional to the trace of the extrinsic curvature. We show that appropriate gauge choices and field redefinitions give rise to Carrollian and Aristotelian descriptions, as well as a tensor-gauge description of the symmetric tensor field coupled to Aristotelian geometry. In the latter description, the Carroll boost parameter plays the role of a vector-valued gauge parameter.