Universal Limits on Massless High-Spin Particles

Abstract

We present a model-independent argument showing that massless particles interacting with gravity in a Minkowski background space can have at most spin two. This result is proven by extending a famous theorem due to Weinberg and Witten to theories that do not possess a gauge-invariant stress-energy tensor.

21 pages. To appear in PRD; two additional references

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Cited by in corpus (71)

• How higher-spin gravity surpasses the spin two barrier: no-go theorems versus yes-go examples
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• String Lessons for Higher-Spin Interactions
• Beyond Amplitudes' Positivity and the Fate of Massive Gravity
• On The Uniqueness of Minimal Coupling in Higher-Spin Gauge Theory
• Bridging Carrollian and Celestial Holography
• Higher-Spin Interactions: four-point functions and beyond
• AdS Field Theory from Conformal Field Theory
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• Soft Photon and Graviton Theorems in Effective Field Theory
• Viable cosmology in bimetric theory
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• On higher spin interactions with matter
• Spinning particles and higher spin fields on (A)dS backgrounds
• Exploring the S-Matrix of Massless Particles
• String Theory and The Velo-Zwanziger Problem
• Higher-Spin Fermionic Gauge Fields and Their Electromagnetic Coupling
• On massive spin 2 electromagnetic interactions
• On higher-spin supertranslations and superrotations
• Unconstrained Higher Spins of Mixed Symmetry. II. Fermi Fields
• String theory triplets and higher-spin curvatures
• A Model Independent Ultraviolet Cutoff for Theories with Charged Massive Higher Spin Fields
• General Lagrangian Formulation for Higher Spin Fields with Arbitrary Index Symmetry. I. Bosonic fields
• A Bound on Massive Higher Spin Particles
• Superconformal symmetry and maximal supergravity in various dimensions
• On the Non-Local Obstruction to Interacting Higher Spins in Flat Space
• From Higher Spins to Strings: A Primer
• The Other Fermion Compositeness
• General Lagrangian Formulation for Higher Spin Fields with Arbitrary Index Symmetry. 2. Fermionic fields
• Higher Spin Dark Matter
• Generalized Chern-Simons higher-spin gravity theories in three dimensions
• Holographic Representation of Higher Spin Gauge Fields
• Consistent Non-Minimal Couplings of Massive Higher-Spin Particles
• New structures in scattering amplitudes: a review
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• Dark matter of any spin -- an effective field theory and applications
• No-go for Partially Massless Spin-2 Yang-Mills
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• Classical and Quantum Gauged Massless Rarita-Schwinger Fields
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• Aspects of Infrared Modifications of Gravity
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• Old and New No Go Theorems on Interacting Massless Particles in Flat Space
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• The Uniqueness of Hypergravity
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• The Involutive System of Higher-Spin Equations
• Fermi-Bose cubic couplings in light-cone field theories
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• HS in flat spacetime. YM-like models
• General Backgrounds for higher spin massive particles
• Contributions to the Muon $g-2$ from a Three-Form Field
• Higher spin interactions: cubic deformations on Minkowski and (Anti)de Sitter backgrounds
• (In)equivalence of Metric-Affine and Metric Effective Field Theories
• Can a Nonstandard Invisible Pair Mimic the Michel Distribution?
• Aspects of Higher Spin Theories, Conformal Field Theories and Holography