Schwinger-Fronsdal Theory of Abelian Tensor Gauge Fields

• Published in: Symmetry, integrability and geometry, methods and applications Vol. 4; p. 061
• Main Author: Guttenberg, Sebastian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kiev National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine 01.01.2008; National Academy of Science of Ukraine
• Subjects: Abelian gauge fields; Abelian tensor gauge fields; conserved currents; high spin fields; weakly conserved currents
• ISSN: 1815-0659; 1815-0659
• DOI: 10.3842/SIGMA.2008.061

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.