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A CSP Field Theory with Helicity Correspondence

High Energy Physics - Theory 2014-04-04 v1

Abstract

We propose the first covariant local action describing the propagation of a single free continuous-spin degree of freedom. The theory is simply formulated as a gauge theory in a "vector superspace", but can also be formulated in terms of a tower of symmetric tensor gauge fields. When the spin invariant ρ\rho vanishes, the helicity correspondence is manifest -- familiar gauge theory actions are recovered and couplings to conserved currents can easily be introduced. For non-zero ρ\rho, a tower of tensor currents must be present, of which only the lowest rank is exactly conserved. A paucity of local gauge-invariant operators for non-zero ρ\rho suggests that the equations of motion in any interacting theory should be covariant, not invariant, under a generalization of the free theory's gauge symmetry.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1404.0675,
  title  = {A CSP Field Theory with Helicity Correspondence},
  author = {Philip Schuster and Natalia Toro},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1404.0675},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

45 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-22T03:41:33.657Z