A NOTE ON GAUGE COVARIANT TRANSLATIONS IN THE GAUGE APPROACH TO GRAVITY

We point out sat in the gauge approach to gravity it is not always pos sible to reduce translation invariance to diffeomorphism invariance. I t is argued that a proper generator of translations on the spacetime m anifold is given by a gauge covariant Lie derivative. A reduction to d iffeomorphism invariance is obtained if the gauging of the translation group does not involve homogeneous frame transformations. Possible co nsequences are shortly discussed.