Consistent spin-two coupling and quadratic gravitation

A discussion of the field content of quadratic higher-derivative gravitation is presented, together with a new example of a massless spin-two field consistently coupled to gravity. The full quadratic gravity theory is shown to be equivalent to a canonical second-order theory of a massive scalar field, a massive spin-two symmetric tensor field, and gravity. The conditions showing that the tensor field describes only spin-two degrees of freedom are derived. A limit of the second-order theory provides a new example of a massless spin-two field consistently coupled to gravity. A restricted set of vacua of the second-order theory is also discussed. It is shown that flat space is the only stable vacuum of this type, and that the spin-two field around flat space is unfortunately always ghostlike. 1996 The American Physical Society.