Related papers: How higher-spin gravity surpasses the spin two bar…
These notes comprise a part of the introductory lectures on Higher Spin Theory presented in the Eighth Modave Summer School in Mathematical Physics. We construct free higher-spin theories and turn on interactions to find that…
We revisit the problem of interactions of higher-spin fields in flat space. We argue that all no-go theorems can be avoided by the light-cone approach, which results in more interaction vertices as compared to the usual covariant…
We investigate generic flat-space higher spin theories in three dimensions and find a no-go result, given certain assumptions that we spell out. Namely, it is only possible to have at most two out of the following three properties:…
We construct the effective field theory for a single massive higher-spin particle in flat spacetime. Positivity bounds of the S-matrix force the cutoff of the theory to be well below the naive strong-coupling scale, forbid any potential and…
Free massive higher spin fields in weak background gravitational fields are discussed. Contrary to the spin one case, higher spin fields should have nontrivial non-minimal couplings to the curvature. A precise analysis is given for the spin…
Introductory lectures on higher-spin gauge theory given at 7 Aegean workshop on non-Einstein theories of gravity. The emphasis is on qualitative features of the higher-spin gauge theory and peculiarities of its space-time interpretation. In…
We provide a review of gauge field theories with higher spin, focusing on the classical theory of massless bosons in flat Minkowski spacetime. A brief introduction to the concept of spin is provided along with a historical review of some of…
There are various no-go theorems that tightly constrain the existence of local higher-spin theories with non-trivial S-matrix in flat space. Due to the existence of higher-spin Yang-Mills theory with non-trivial scattering amplitudes, it…
In this work we construct an infinite class of four-point functions for massless higher-spin fields in flat space that are consistent with the gauge symmetry. In the Lagrangian picture, these reflect themselves in a peculiar non-local…
A discussion of the number of degrees of freedom, and their dynamical properties, in higher derivative gravitational theories is presented. The complete non-linear sigma model for these degrees of freedom is exhibited using the method of…
We present a review of the homological algebra tools involved in the standard de Rham theory and their subsequent generalizations relevant for the understanding of free massless higher spin gauge structure. M-theory arguments suggest the…
We study the problem of interacting theories with (partially)-massless and conformal higher spin fields without matter in three dimensions. A new class of theories that have partially-massless fields is found, which significantly extends…
A discussion of the number of degrees of freedom, and their dynamical properties, in higher derivative gravitational theories is presented. The complete non-linear sigma model for these degrees of freedom is exhibited using the method of…
The theory of freely-propagating massless higher spins is usually formulated via gauge fields and parameters subject to trace constraints. We summarize a proposal allowing to forego them by introducing only a pair of additional fields in…
Massless higher-spin fields show no preference for any value of the cosmological constant in $3d$. All matter-free higher-spin gravities in 3d are equivalent to Chern-Simons theories with an appropriate choice of gauge algebra. For various…
We investigate the structure of equations of motion and lagrangian constraints in a general theory of massive spin 2 field interacting with external gravity. We demonstrate how consistency with the flat limit can be achieved in a number of…
We study Vasiliev's higher-spin gravity in 3+1d. We formulate the theory in the so-called compensator formalism, where the local isometry group SO(4,1) is reduced to the Lorentz group SO(3,1) by a choice of spacelike direction in an…
Gravitational interactions of higher spin fields are generically plagued by inconsistencies. We present a simple framework that couples higher spins to a broad class of gravitational backgrounds (including Ricci flat and Einstein)…
There is a great number of higher-spin gravities in $3d$ that can have both finite and infinite spectra of fields and can be formulated as Chern-Simons theories. It was believed that this is impossible in higher dimensions, where…
We explore non-Gaussian features of a massless spin-two field in the Vasiliev theory of higher-spin gravity. The theory contains an infinite tower of interacting gauge fields with increasing spin, and admits four-dimensional asymptotically…