Related papers: Unitarity in three-dimensional flat space higher s…
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…
We observe that the partition function of the set of all free massless higher spins s=0,1,2,3,... in flat space is equal to one: the ghost determinants cancel against the "physical" ones or, equivalently, the (regularized) total number of…
I outline a series of results obtained in collaboration with A. Waldron on the properties of massive higher (s>1) spin fields in cosmological, constant curvature, backgrounds and the resulting unexpected qualitative effects on their degrees…
We provide the first evidence for a holographic correspondence between a gravitational theory in flat space and a specific unitary field theory in one dimension lower. The gravitational theory is a flat-space limit of topologically massive…
We study the condition that the theory is unitary and stable in three-dimensional gravity with most general quadratic curvature, Lorentz-Chern-Simons and cosmological terms. We provide the complete classification of the unitary theories…
An example of a higher spin gravity in four-dimensional flat space has recently been constructed in arXiv:1609.04655 [hep-th]. This theory is chiral and the action is written in the light-cone gauge. The theory has certain stringy features,…
A theory of gravitation is presented. This theory does not relate gravitation to curvature of space-time. It explains the three standard results of general relativity in agreement with observations and suggests new experiments.
We study the null orbifold singularity in 2+1 d flat space higher spin theory as well as string theory. Using the Chern-Simons formulation of 2+1 d Einstein gravity, we first observe that despite the singular nature of this geometry, the…
Self-interacting massive particles with spin $\geq 1$ unavoidably violate unitarity; the question is at what scale. For spin-$1$ the strong coupling scale (at which perturbative unitarity is lost) cannot be raised by any finite tuning of…
We construct stationary flat three-dimensional Lorentzian manifolds with singularities that are obtained from Euclidean surfaces with cone singularities and closed one-forms on these surfaces. In the application to (2+1)-gravity, these…
We present and discuss near horizon boundary conditions for flat space higher-spin gravity in three dimensions. As in related work our boundary conditions ensure regularity of the solutions independently of the charges. The asymptotic…
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…
We conjecture that Vasiliev's theory of higher spin gravity in four-dimensional de Sitter space (dS) is holographically dual to a three-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT) living on the spacelike boundary of dS at future timelike…
An example of a consistent theory with massive higher spin fields is constructed in flat space-time of dimension three. The action is written in the light-cone gauge. The theory has certain stringy features, e.g. its spectrum is unbounded…
In this thesis massive higher derivative gravity theories are analyzed in some detail. One-particle scattering amplitude between two covariantly conserved sources mediated by a graviton exchange is found at tree-level in $D$ dimensional…
This dissertation consists of three parts. The first part of the thesis is devoted to the study of gravity and higher spin gauge theories in 2+1 dimensions. The first part deals with cosmological solutions of spin-3 gravity and their…
We study N=1,2,4 higher spin superalgebras in four dimensions and higher spin gauge theories based on them. We extend the existing minimal N=2,4 theories and find a minimal N=1 theory. Utilizing the basic structure of the minimal N=8…
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…
Preliminary investigations are made for the stability of the $1/N$ expansion in three-dimensional gravity coupled to various matter fields, which are power-counting renormalizable. For unitary matters, a tachyonic pole appears in the spin-2…
It is well-known that coupling a spin $\frac32$-field to a gravitational or electromagnetic background leads to potential problems both in the classical and in the quantum theory. Various solutions to these problems have been proposed so…