Given an internal symmetry group, we gauge it by promoting the exterior derivative to its covariant version:
D=d+A,
where A=AaTa is a Lie algebra valued one-form known as the connection (or gauge field) and T the algebra generators.
For GR, we would like to do the same thing with the Poincaré group. But the Poincaré group isn't simple, but rather splits into translations P and Lorentz transformations J. I would thus expect two species of connections:
D=d+BaPa+AabJab.
But the covariant derivative of GR as usually found in textbooks is:
∇μ=∂μ+12(ωαβ)μJαβ,
where ω is the spin connection. It is defined for any object that has a defined transformation under J, i.e., under Lorentz transformations, like spinors or tensors. But it makes no mention of the translation generator P. What happened? Shouldn't I have this extra gauge field?
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