Inconsistencies of Massive Charged Gravitating Higher Spins

Abstract

We examine the causality and degrees of freedom (DoF) problems encountered by charged, gravitating, massive higher spin fields. For spin s=3/2, making the metric dynamical yields improved causality bounds. These involve only the mass, the product eM_P of the charge and Planck mass and the cosmological constant Λ. The bounds are themselves related to a gauge invariance of the timelike component of the field equation at the onset of acausality. While propagation is causal in arbitrary E/M backgrounds, the allowed mass ranges of parameters are of Planck order. Generically, interacting spins s>3/2 are subject to DoF violations as well as to acausality; the former must be overcome before analysis of the latter can even begin. Here we review both difficulties for charged s=2 and show that while a g-factor of 1/2 solves the DoF problem, acausality persists for any g. Separately we establish that no s=2 theory --DoF preserving or otherwise -- can be tree unitary.

25 pages, latex

References in corpus (5)

• Partial Masslessness of Higher Spins in (A)dS
• Gauge Invariances and Phases of Massive Higher Spins in (A)dS
• Null Propagation of Partially Massless Higher Spins in (A)dS and Cosmological Constant Speculations
• Stability of Massive Cosmological Gravitons
• (Dis)continuities of Massless Limits in Spin 3/2-mediated Interactions and Cosmological Supergravity

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