Dynamical implementation of the constraints in conformal gravity

We propose a first-order geometric Lagrangian for four-dimensional conformal gravity (CG) within the Cartan formulation, which yields, dynamically, the standard constraints on the fields, expected for CG. Upon imposing the dynamical constraints, together with the request of conformal invariance of the off-shell Lagrangian, the theory reduces to the standard expression for CG, in terms of quadratic curvature invariants. Our results clarify the geometric status of CG as a gauge theory and open the way to a similar dynamical implementation of the constraints in higher dimensions and supersymmetric extensions.