Higher spin $m\ne 0$ excitations on curved backgrounds and cosmological supergravity

Abstract

Some time ago, we showed that a weak (linear) massless spin 2 wave could only propagate on a Ricci-flat or Ricci-constant background: it must necessarily be a perturbation of General Relativity. This was just the continuation of the higher spin chain: massless $s=3/2$ also required Ricci-flatness (which is the basis of supergravity) while $s>2$ needs Riemann flatness. This note re-analyzes the problem in a perhaps more physical way: by considering massless and -- only apparently -- massive small excitations and showing how their parameters relate to the cosmological constant. We will thus prove, in a simple physical way, the necessity, as well as the sufficiency, of the known supergravity results.

arXiv commentAddentum to Class. Quant. Grav. 24 (2007), 1683-1686 - important comment by S. Deser added

References in corpus (6)

• Self-Interaction and Gauge Invariance
• Inconsistency of interacting, multi-graviton theories
• Acausality of Massive Gravity
• A note on spin two fields in curved backgrounds
• Higher spin $m\ne 0$ excitations on curved backgrounds and cosmological supergravity
• Higher curvature gravities, unlike GR, cannot be bootstrapped from their (usual) linearizations

Cited by in corpus (17)

• Theoretical Aspects of Massive Gravity
• Renormalisation of Newton's constant
• Kaluza-Klein Towers on General Manifolds
• Higher spin $m\ne 0$ excitations on curved backgrounds and cosmological supergravity
• Partially Massless Graviton on Beyond Einstein Spacetimes
• A note on spin two fields in curved backgrounds
• TDiff and Weyl Invariant Massive Spin-2: Linear Theory
• On the spacetime connecting two aeons in conformal cyclic cosmology
• Kaluza-Klein Reduction of Massive and Partially Massless Spin-2 Fields
• Consistent Gravitationally-Coupled Spin-2 Field Theory
• On the renormalization of the Gibbons-Hawking boundary term
• Unitarity constraints on the ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density in higher derivative gravity
• Cosmology of Spin-2 Fields
• Note on massless and partially massless spin-2 particles in a curved background via a nonsymmetric tensor
• Conformal and gauge invariant spin-2 field equations
• Spin-2 fields and helicity
• On some links between quantum physics and gravitation