Linear connections with propagating spin-3 field in gravity

Abstract

We show that Fronsdal's Lagrangian for a free massless spin-3 gauge field in Minkowski spacetime is contained in a general Yang--Mills-like Lagrangian of metric-affine gravity (MAG), the gauge theory of the general affine group in the presence of a metric. Due to the geometric character of MAG, this can best be seen by using Vasiliev's frame formalism for higher-spin gauge fields in which the spin-3 frame is identified with the tracefree nonmetricity one-form associated with the shear generators of GL(n,R). Furthermore, for specific gravitational gauge models in the framework of full nonlinear MAG, exact solutions are constructed, featuring propagating massless and massive spin-3 fields.

References added. Minor corrections and clarifications. To be published in Phys. Rev. D

References in corpus (3)

• Gauge invariant Lagrangian formulation of higher spin massive bosonic field theory in AdS space
• PP-waves with torsion and metric-affine gravity
• A Higgs Mechanism for Gravity. Part II: Higher Spin Connections

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