"Massive" Rarita-Schwinger field in de Sitter space

TL;DR

This paper develops a covariant quantization framework for the massive spin-3/2 Rarita-Schwinger field in de Sitter space, connecting group representation theory with quantum field theory in curved spacetime.

Contribution

It introduces a dS-invariant plane-wave representation and constructs the two-point function for the massive Rarita-Schwinger field, extending Minkowski results to curved spacetime.

Findings

Explicit dS-invariant plane-wave representation derived

Two-point function satisfying key axioms constructed

Reduction to Minkowski case in flat limit demonstrated

Abstract

We present a covariant quantization of the "massive" spin-${\frac{3}{2}}$ Rarita-Schwinger field in de Sitter (dS) spacetime. The dS group representation theory and its Wigner interpretation combined with the Wightman-G$\mbox{\"{a}}$rding axiomatic and analyticity requirements in the complexified pseudo-Riemanian manifold constitute the basis of the quantization scheme, while the whole procedure is carried out in terms of coordinate-independent dS plane waves. We make explicit the correspondence between unitary irreducible representations (UIRs) of the dS group and the field theory in dS spacetime: by "massive" is meant a field that carries a particular principal series representation of the dS group. We drive the plane-wave representation of the dS massive Rarita-Schwinger field in a manifestly dS-invariant manner. We show that it exactly reduces to its Minkowskian counterpart when the curvature tends to zero as far as the analyticity domain conveniently chosen. We then present the Wightman two-point function fulfilling the minimal requirements of local anticommutativity, covariance, and normal analyticity. The Hilbert space structure and the unsmeared field operator are also defined. The analyticity properties of the waves and the two-point function that we discuss in this paper allow for a detailed study of the Hilbert space of the theory, and give rise to the thermal physical interpretation.