https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-019-6660-4
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
HS in flat spacetime: the effective action method
1
International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), Via Bonomea 265, 34136, Trieste, Italy
2
INFN, Sezione di Trieste, Trieste, Italy
3
Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Bijenička cesta 32, 10000, Zagreb, Croatia
4
Department of Physics, University of Rijeka, Radmile Matejčić 2, 51000, Rijeka, Croatia
5
Department of Sciences, Holon Institute of Technology (HIT), 52 Golomb St., 5810201, Holon, Israel
* e-mail: bonora@sissa.it
Received:
20
November
2018
Accepted:
7
February
2019
Published online:
21
March
2019
This is the first paper in a series of three dealing with HS theories in flat spacetime. It is divided in three parts. The first part is an elaboration on the method of effective action, initiated in a previous paper. We study the properties of correlators of currents in the free fermion coupled to external higher spin (HS) potentials, and develop techniques for their explicit calculation. In particular we show how they can be calculated via ordinary Feynman diagram techniques. We also introduce the concept of curved
algebra and show how it can be realized in the context of the fermion model. In part II we compare the results of the scalar model and those of the fermion model (coupled to HS fields). We show that the HS field formulation coming from the scalar model is the ‘square’ of the one ensuing from the fermion model. Finally, in part III, we analyse the possible obstructions that one may meet in constructing the effective action: these are the analogues of anomalies in ordinary gauge theories. We provide explicit and compact formulas of the latter.
© The Author(s), 2019
