A brief guide to variations in teleparallel gauge theories of gravity and the Kaniel-Itin model (Q1807322)

The authors study a proposal of \textit{S. Kaniel} and \textit{A. P. Itin} [Gravity on a parallelizable manifold, Nuovo Cimento Soc. Ital. Fis. B (12) 113, 393-400 (1998)] of a wave type equation for the coframe in the context of a teleparallelism type theory of gravity. In the wake of this a general formula for the variation of the Hodge dual of a p-form is derived and the corresponding computer algebra program in REDUCE is appended. The propagating degrees of freedom in gravitational waves needs to be studied in more detail as well as the issue of anomalies [cf. \textit{E. W. Mielke}, Phys. Lett. A 251, 349-353 (1999; Zbl 0937.83018)].