A note on field equations in generalized theories of gravity

In the work (arXiv:1109.3846 [gr-qc]), to obtain a simple and economic formulation of field equations for generalised theories of gravity described by the Lagrangian $\sqrt{-g}L\big(g^{\alpha\beta},R_{\mu\nu\rho\sigma}\big)$, the key equality $\big(\partial L/\partial g^{\mu\nu}\big)_{R_{\alpha\beta\kappa\omega}} =2P_{\mu}^{~\lambda\rho\sigma}R_{\nu\lambda\rho\sigma}$ was derived. In this note, it is demonstrated that such an equality can be directly derived from an off-shell Noether current associated with an arbitrary vector field. As byproducts, a generalized Bianchi identity related to the divergence for the expression of field equations, together with the Noether potential, is obtained. On the basis of the above, we further propose a systematic procedure to derive the equations of motion from the Noether current, and then this procedure is extended to more general higher-order gravities endowed with the Lagrangian encompassing additional terms of the covariant derivatives of the Riemann tensor. To our knowledge, both the detailed expressions for field equations and the Noether potential associated with such theories are first given at a general level. All the results reveal that using the Noether current to determine field equations establishes a straightforward connection between the symmetry of the Lagrangian and the equations of motion and such a remedy even can avoid calculating the derivative of the Lagrangian density with respect to the metric.