Symmetry of massive Rarita-Schwinger fields

Abstract

We derive the general lagrangian and propagator for a vector-spinor field in $d$-dimensions and show that the physical observables are invariant under the so-called point transformation symmetry. Until now the symmetry has not been exploited in any non-trival way, presumably because it is not an invariance of the classical action nor is it a gauge symmetry. Nevertheless, we develop a technique for exploring the consequences of the symmetry leading to a conserved vector current and charge. The current and charge are identically zero in the free field case and only contribute in a background such as a electromagnetic or gravitational field. The current can couple spin-3/2 fields to vector and scalar fields and may have important consequences in intermediate energy hadron physics as well as linearized supergravity. The consistency problem which plagues higher spin field theories is then discussed and and some ideas regarding the possiblity of solutions are presented.

26 pages, 1 figure; revised using referee comments, Journal ref. added

References in corpus (5)

• Effective theory of the Delta(1232) in Compton scattering off the nucleon
• Infrared regularization with spin-3/2 fields
• The Rarita--Schwinger field: dressing procedure and spin-parity content
• New symmetry current for massive spin-3/2 fields
• Higher spin hadrons as relativistic fields

Cited by in corpus (24)

• Electromagnetic excitation of the Delta(1232)-resonance
• Including the $\Delta (1232)$ resonance in baryon chiral perturbation theory
• Redundancy of the off-shell parameters in chiral effective field theory with explicit spin-3/2 degrees of freedom
• Consistency of the $\pi \Delta$ interaction in chiral perturbation theory
• Electromagnetic Nucleon-to-Delta Transition in Holographic QCD
• Mass and axial charge of heavy baryons
• Heavy baryon properties with NLO accuracy in perturbative QCD
• Higher-spin particles at high-energy colliders
• Chiral Lagrangians with $\Delta (1232)$ to one loop
• Lorentz-breaking Rarita-Schwinger model
• Rarita--Schwinger field and multi-component wave equation
• Chiral Lagrangians with decuplet baryons to one loop
• Factorization in the model of unstable particles with continuous masses
• Hidden Spin-3/2 Field in the Standard Model
• Non-Abelian Carroll-Field-Jackiw term term in a Rarita-Schwinger model
• Gauge- and point-invariant vertices of nucleon-to-resonance interactions
• Type-3/2 Seesaw Mechanism
• Symmetries of higher-spin fields and the electromagnetic N-N(1680) form factors
• Dirac/Rarita-Schwinger plus Maxwell theories in $\mathbb{R}\times S^3$ spacetime in the Hopf coordinates
• Inclusive pentaquark and strange baryons production in pp and Σp collisions at high energy
• Carroll-Field-Jackiw term in a massless Rarita-Schwinger model
• On the photon mass generation in Rarita-Schwinger QED
• Conformal gauge theory of vector-spinors and spin-3/2 particles
• Fine-tuned Spin-3/2 and the Hierarchy Problem