English

A partially broken Fronsdal model for massless higher-spin particles of integer spin

High Energy Physics - Theory 2025-10-10 v3

Abstract

By introducing arbitrary parameters in the usual Fronsdal model, we find a region in the parameters space away from the ``Fronsdal point'' where we still have an irreducible description of massless particles of arbitrary integer spin s3s\ge 3. The higher spin gauge symmetry is further constrained by a vanishing double divergence condition on the traceless gauge parameter: Λˉ=0\partial\cdot\partial\cdot\bar\Lambda=0. Remarkably, it does not introduce extra propagating gauge invariants. We demonstrate that we only have spin-ss helicity states as propagating modes for arbitrary integer s3s\ge 3. For the simplest s=3s=3 case we present a gauge invariant proof while for s4s\ge 4 we use a light-cone gauge. The reduction in the gauge symmetry allows for more general source couplings when compared to the Fronsdal model.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2507.04226,
  title  = {A partially broken Fronsdal model for massless higher-spin particles of integer spin},
  author = {D. Dalmazi and B. dos S. Martins},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.04226},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

21 pages, no figures, typos fixed, to appear in JHEP

R2 v1 2026-07-01T03:48:02.662Z