Hamiltonian Structure of Fierz-Pauli Gravitons, Partially Massless Fields and Gauge Symmetry

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the Hamiltonian structure of Fierz-Pauli gravitons, revealing how gauge symmetry and degrees of freedom change with mass, especially in de Sitter space, and derives the gauge transformation generators.

Contribution

It provides a detailed Hamiltonian analysis of Fierz-Pauli theories, highlighting the transition to gauge symmetry at the partially massless point and deriving the associated gauge generators.

Findings

Constraint algebra changes abruptly when mass is turned off.

Gauge symmetry appears at the partially massless point in de Sitter space.

Generated gauge transformations for both massless and partially massless cases.

Abstract

We study the constraint structure of Fierz -Pauli action in both flat and curved space in the framework of Hamiltonian formalism. We observe an abrupt change in the constraint algebra and the characteristics of the constraints when the mass term is turned off. As is well-known, for de Sitter background with a special tuning of the mass, we will have a gauge symmetry and one degree of freedom less. We will show how this abrupt change in the behavior of the system is reflected on the properties of the constraint algebra. We also obtain the generating functional of gauge transformations both for the massless and partially massless theories.