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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Five dimensional Weyl double copy

Weicheng Zhao1,*, Pu-Jian Mao1,†, and Jun-Bao Wu1,2,‡

  • *Contact author: zhaoweichengok@tju.edu.cn
  • †Contact author: pjmao@tju.edu.cn
  • ‡Contact author: junbao.wu@tju.edu.cn

Phys. Rev. D 111, L081902 – Published 28 April, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.111.L081902

Abstract

The Weyl double copy (WDC) relation connects the Weyl tensor of the gravity theory and the field strength tensor of the Maxwell theory, which provides a concrete realization of the classical double copy. Although intensively investigated, the WDC is only limited in four-dimensional spacetime. In this Letter, we generalize the WDC relation to five-dimensional spacetime, which offers the first example of the WDC in higher dimensions. We show that a special class of five-dimensional type N vacuum solutions admits a special class of degenerate Maxwell field that squares to give the Weyl tensor. The five-dimensional WDC relation defines a scalar field that satisfies the source-free Klein-Gordon equation on the curved background. We further verify that for five-dimensional pp-wave solution and Kundt solutions, the Maxwell fields and the scalar fields also satisfy the Maxwell’s equations and the wave equation on five-dimensional Minkowski spacetime.

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