2017/12/31 by K. B. Alkalaev, Konstantin Alkalaev, Maxim Grigoriev +1 · 1 citation
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Classical mechanics #Continuous symmetry #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Equations of motion #Gauge symmetry #Gauge theory #Geometry #Homogeneous space #Massless particle #Mathematical physics #Mathematics #Minkowski space #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Scalar (mathematics) #Scalar field #Spin (aerodynamics) #Symmetry (geometry) #Theoretical physics #Type (biology) #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/jhep03(2018)030
25 pages; v2: more comments, refs added, JHEP version
openalex publication_date 2018/03/01 · arxiv created 2018/03/11 · arxiv updated 2018/04/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
A bstract We propose a description of continuous spin massless fields of mixed-symmetry type in Minkowski space at the level of equations of motion. It is based on the appropriately modified version of the constrained system originally used to describe massless bosonic fields of mixed-symmetry type. The description is shown to produce generalized versions of triplet, metric-like, and light-cone formulations. In particular, for scalar continuous spin fields we reproduce the Bekaert-Mourad formulation and the Schuster-Toro formulation. Because a continuous spin system inevitably involves infinite number of fields, specification of the allowed class of field configurations becomes a part of its definition. We show that the naive choice leads to an empty system and propose a suitable class resulting in the correct degrees of freedom. We also demonstrate that the gauge symmetries present in the formulation are all Stueckelberg-like so that the continuous spin system is not a genuine gauge theory.