2018/08/04 by A. Campoleoni, Andrea Campoleoni, Dario Francia +6
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Algebraic structures and combinatorial models #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #gr-qc #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1808.01542
11 pages. Contribution to the proceedings of Quarks-2018, XXth International Seminar on High Energy Physics; Valday, Russia, 27 May - 2 June 2018
arxiv created 2018/08/04 · arxiv updated 2018/08/07
Weinberg's celebrated factorisation theorem holds for soft quanta of arbitrary integer spin. The same result, for spin one and two, has been rederived assuming that the infinite-dimensional asymptotic symmetry group of Maxwell's equations and of asymptotically flat spaces leave the S-matrix invariant. For higher spins, on the other hand, no such infinite-dimensional asymptotic symmetries were known and, correspondingly, no a priori derivation of Weinberg's theorem could be conjectured. In this contribution we review the identification of higher-spin supertranslations and superrotations in D=4 as well as their connection to Weinberg's result. While the procedure we follow can be shown to be consistent in any D, no infinite-dimensional enhancement of the asymptotic symmetry group emerges from it in D>4, thus leaving a number of questions unanswered.