Setting the connection free in the Galilei and Carroll expansions of gravity

Abstract: We obtain a Palatini-type formulation for the Galilei and Carroll expansions of general relativity, where the connection is promoted to a variable. Known versions of these large and small speed of light expansions are derived from the Einstein-Hilbert action and involve dynamical Newton-Cartan or Carroll geometry, along with additional gauge fields at subleading orders. The corresponding Palatini actions that we obtain in this paper are derived from an appropriate expansion of the Einstein-Palatini action, and the connection variable reduces to the Galilei- or Carroll-adapted connection on shell. In particular, we present the Palatini form for the next-to-leading order Galilean action and recover the known equations of motion. We also compute the leading-order Palatini-type action for the Carrollian case and show that, while it depends on the connection variable, it reduces on shell to the known action of electric Carroll gravity, which only depends on extrinsic curvature.