All actions for free massive higher-spin fields
Abstract
Massive higher-spin states/fields appear in the effective description of various systems from hadrons and nuclei to black holes, whenever the point-particle approximation is justified, as well as in the bottom-up approaches to the quantum gravity problem. In four dimensions the actions for massive higher-spin fields utilize either the Singh-Hagen/Zinoviev set of auxiliary fields or a single chiral field, which is an spin-tensor of type , generalizing the Chalmers-Siegel approach. We show that these two actions are on the opposite ends of a discrete family of actions where the physical field is a spin-tensor of type . The - and -cases generalize the Proca and the Fierz-Pauli actions, respectively, to all spins. A similar family of second-order actions exists for fermionic higher-spin fields.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2411.03463,
title = {All actions for free massive higher-spin fields},
author = {William Delplanque},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.03463},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
25 pages, replaced with a revised (published) version