This article is cited in 20 papers

Schwinger–Fronsdal Theory of Abelian Tensor Gauge Fields

Sebastian Guttenberg, George Savvidy

Institute of Nuclear Physics, Demokritos National Research Center, Agia Paraskevi, GR-15310 Athens, Greece

Abstract: This review is devoted to the Schwinger and Fronsdal theory of Abelian tensor gauge fields. The theory describes the propagation of free massless gauge bosons of integer helicities and their interaction with external currents. Self-consistency of its equations requires only the traceless part of the current divergence to vanish. The essence of the theory is given by the fact that this weaker current conservation is enough to guarantee the unitarity of the theory. Physically this means that only waves with transverse polarizations are propagating very far from the sources. The question whether such currents exist should be answered by a fully interacting theory. We also suggest an equivalent representation of the corresponding action.

Keywords: Abelian gauge fields; Abelian tensor gauge fields; high spin fields; conserved currents; This review is devoted to the Schwinger and Fronsdal theory of Abelian tensor gauge fields. The theory describes the propagation of free massless gauge bosons of integer helicities and their interaction with external currents.

MSC: 81T10; 81T13; 70S05; 70S10; 70S15; 35L05; 35L10

Received: April 23, 2008; in final form September 1, 2008; Published online September 4, 2008

Language: English

DOI: 10.3842/SIGMA.2008.061

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ArXiv: 0804.0522