Towards metric-like higher-spin gauge theories in three dimensions
We consider the coupling of a symmetric spin-3 gauge field to three-dimensional gravity in a second order metric-like formulation. The action that corresponds to an SL(3,R) x SL(3,R) Chern-Simons theory in the frame-like formulation is identified to quadratic order in the spin-3 field. We apply our result to compute corrections to the area law for higher-spin black holes using Wald's entropy formula.