Physics Letters B 773 (2017) 135–141
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Physics Letters B
www.elsevier.com/locate/physletb
Fermionic continuous spin gauge field in (A)dS space
R.R. Metsaev
Department of Theoretical Physics, P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute, Leninsky prospect 53, Moscow 119991, Russia
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received
13 July 2017
Received
in revised form 9 August 2017
Accepted
11 August 2017
Available
online 16 August 2017
Editor:
N. Lambert
Keywords:
Fermionic
field
Continuous
spin
Higher-spin
field
Fermionic continuous spin field propagating in (A)dS space–time is studied. Gauge invariant Lagrangian
formulation for such fermionic field is developed. Lagrangian of the fermionic continuous spin field is
constructed in terms of triple gamma-traceless tensor–spinor Dirac fields, while gauge symmetries are
realized by using gamma-traceless gauge transformation parameters. It is demonstrated that partition
function of fermionic continuous spin field is equal to one. Modified de Donder gauge condition that
considerably simplifies analysis of equations of motion is found. Decoupling limits leading to arbitrary
spin massless, partial-massless, and massive fermionic fields are studied.
© 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Funded by SCOAP
3
.
1. Introduction
In view of many interesting features of continuous spin gauge
field theory this topic has attracted some interest in recent time
[1–3]. For a list of references devoted to various aspects of contin-
uous
spin field, see Refs. [2,4,5]. It seems likely that some regime
of the string theory can be related to continuous spin field theory
(see, e.g., Refs. [6]). Other interesting feature of continuous spin
field theory, which triggered our interest in this topic, is that the
bosonic continuous spin field can be decomposed into an infinite
chain of coupled scalar, vector, and totally symmetric tensor fields
which consists of every field just once. We recall then that a sim-
ilar
infinite chain of scalar, vector and totally symmetric fields en-
ters
the theory of bosonic higher-spin gauge field in AdS space [7].
Supersymmetry
plays important role in string theory and
higher-spin gauge field theory. We expect that supersymmetry
will also play important role in theory of continuous spin field.
For a discussion of supersymmetry, we need to study bosonic
and fermionic continuous spin fields. Lagrangian formulation of
bosonic continuous spin field in flat space R
3,1
was studied in
Ref. [2], while Lagrangian formulation of bosonic continuous spin
field in flat space R
d,1
and (A)dS
d+1
space with arbitrary d was
discussed in Ref. [3]. Lagrangian formulation of fermionic contin-
uous
spin field in flat space R
3,1
was obtained in Ref. [1]. So
far Lagrangian formulation of fermionic continuous spin field in
(A)dS
d+1
and R
d,1
with arbitrary d has not been discussed in the
literature. Our major aim in this paper is to develop Lagrangian for-
E-mail address: metsaev@lpi.ru.
mulation of continuous spin fermionic field in flat space R
d,1
and
(A)dS
d+1
space with arbitrary d ≥ 3.
1
As by product, using our La-
grangian
formulation, we compute partition functions of fermionic
continuous spin fields in (A)dS and flat spaces and show that
such partition functions are equal to 1. Considering various decou-
pling
limits, we demonstrate how massless, partial-massless, and
massive fermionic fields appear in the framework of Lagrangian
formulation of fermionic continuous spin (A)dS field.
2. Lagrangian formulation of fermionic continuous spin field
Field content. To discuss gauge invariant and Lorentz covariant
formulation of fermionic continuous spin field propagating in
(A)dS
d+1
space we introduce the following set of Dirac complex-
valued
spin-
1
2
, spin-
3
2
, and tensor–spinor fields of the Lorentz
so(d, 1) algebra
ψ
a
1
...a
n
α
, n = 0, 1,...,∞, (2.1)
where flat vector indices of the so (d, 1) algebra a
1
, ..., a
n
run over
0, 1, ..., d, while α stands for spinor index. In what follows, the
spinor indices will be implicit. In (2.1), fields with n = 0 and
n = 1are the respective Dirac spin-
1
2
and spin-
3
2
fields of the
so(d, 1) algebra, while fields with n ≥ 2are the totally symmet-
ric
spin-(n +
1
2
) Dirac tensor–spinor fields of the so (d, 1) algebra.
1
We agree with remarks of Authors in Refs. [1,2] that generalization of La-
grangian
for continuous spin massless field in flat space R
3,1
to the case of R
d,1
with d > 3is straightforward.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2017.08.020
0370-2693/
© 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Funded by
SCOAP
3
.