pp waves of conformal gravity with self-interacting source

Recently, Deser, Jackiw and Pi have shown that three-dimensional conformal gravity with a source given by a conformally coupled scalar field admits pp wave solutions. In this paper, we consider this model with a self-interacting potential preserving the conformal structure. A pp wave geometry is also supported by this system and, we show that this model is equivalent to topologically massive gravity with a cosmological constant whose value is given in terms of the potential strength. (c) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.