Massive higher spins: effective theory and consistency

Brando Bellazzini (1) , Francesco Riva (2) , Javi Serra (3) , Francesco Sgarlata (4)

1 IPHT - Institut de Physique Théorique - UMR CNRS 3681
2 Departement de Physique Théorique [Genève]
3 TUM - Technische Universität Munchen - Technical University Munich - Université Technique de Munich
4 SISSA MathLab [Trieste]

We construct the effective field theory for a single massive higher-spin particle in flat spacetime. Positivity bounds of the S-matrix force the cutoff of the theory to be well below the naive strong-coupling scale, forbid any potential and make therefore higher-derivative operators important even at low energy. As interesting application, we discuss in detail the massive spin-3 theory and show that an extended Galileon-like symmetry of the longitudinal modes, even with spin, emerges at high energy.

Domaines: Physique [physics]

Brando Bellazzini, Francesco Riva, Javi Serra, Francesco Sgarlata. Massive higher spins: effective theory and consistency. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2019, 2019, pp.189. ⟨10.1007/JHEP10(2019)189⟩. ⟨cea-02438444v2⟩