Boundary terms, branes, and AdS/BCFT duality in first-order gravity

We provide an account of the issue of Gibbons-Hawking-York-like boundary terms for a gravity theory defined on a Riemann-Cartan spacetime. We further discuss different criteria for introducing boundary terms in some familiar first-order gravity theories with both on-shell vanishing and nonvanishing torsion, along with considerations regarding the thermodynamics of black holes and profiles of the end-of-the-world branes. Our analysis confirms the expected geodesic profile of the end-of-the-world brane in the BF formulation of Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity. Finally, we present the first realization of the AdS/BCFT duality for spacetime with torsion. Published by the American Physical Society 2024