A Flat-Spacetime Theory of Gravity and Fundamental Fields Emergence of Curvature from Spin-2 Dynamics and Higgs-Mediated Mass

We present a flat-spacetime formulation of gravity in which a massless spin-2 field, uni-
versally coupled to matter and Higgs-sector excitations, generates an effective curved metric.
Starting from a Minkowskian background, we construct a self-consistent interaction scheme
where matter fields, including the Higgs field, contribute to an effective energy–momentum
tensor that sources the spin-2 dynamics. Through nonlinear completions of the Fierz–Pauli
theory, we show that the emergent metric satisfies the Einstein field equations at the effec-
tive level. The framework provides a unified description of gravity and fundamental fields
while retaining a flat underlying geometry, reconciling quantum field theory structure with
gravitational curvature as an emergent phenomenon.