English

Characteristic Cohomology and Observables in Higher Spin Gravity

High Energy Physics - Theory 2021-02-03 v3

Abstract

We give a complete classification of dynamical invariants in 3d3d and 4d4d Higher Spin Gravity models, with some comments on arbitrary dd. These include holographic correlation functions, interaction vertices, on-shell actions, conserved currents, surface charges, and some others. Surprisingly, there are a good many conserved pp-form currents with various pp. The last fact, being in tension with `no nontrivial conserved currents in quantum gravity' and similar statements, gives an indication of hidden integrability of the models. Our results rely on a systematic computation of Hochschild, cyclic, and Chevalley--Eilenberg cohomology for the corresponding higher spin algebras. A new invariant in Chern-Simons theory with the Weyl algebra as gauge algebra is also presented.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2006.13986,
  title  = {Characteristic Cohomology and Observables in Higher Spin Gravity},
  author = {Alexey Sharapov and Evgeny Skvortsov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2006.13986},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

40 pages + Appendices=74; agrees with the published version, refs and comments added