Basic introduction to higher-spin theories

2022/06/30 by Dmitry Ponomarev · 1 voice · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #hep-th

paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s10773-023-05399-5

arxiv published 2022/06/30 · arxiv updated 2023/05/25

Abstract

This is a collection of my lecture notes on the higher-spin theory course given for students at the Institute for Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, Lomonosov Moscow State University. The goal of these lectures is to give an introduction to higher-spin theories accessible to master level students which would enable them to read the higher-spin literature. I start by introducing basic relevant notions of representation theory and the associated field-theoretic descriptions. Focusing on massless symmetric fields I review different approaches to interactions as well as the no-go results. I end the lectures by reviewing some of the currently available positive results on interactions of massless higher-spin fields, namely, holographic, Chern-Simons and chiral higher-spin theories.

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Discussions

• In this answer we consider the interesting Fronsdal's higher-spin theory for a free massless symmetric tensor field $\phi_{\mu(j)}$ with integer spin $j\in\mathbb{N}_0$ in a Minkowski spacetime $\math [stackexchange, 2 points]

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