Cubic vertices of interacting massless spin 4 and real scalar fields in unconstrained formulation

TL;DR

This paper constructs a new family of cubic interaction vertices between massless spin 4 and scalar fields using an unconstrained formulation, revealing gauge-invariant interactions with auxiliary fields and their constrained counterparts.

Contribution

It introduces a four-parameter family of gauge-invariant cubic vertices for massless spin 4 and scalar fields using an unconstrained approach, extending previous methods.

Findings

Existence of a four-parameter family of cubic vertices

Vertices contain four derivatives and include auxiliary fields

Elimination of auxiliary fields yields a one-parameter family of constrained vertices

Abstract

New method (arXiv:2104.11930) is applied to construct cubic interactions of massless spin 4 and real scalar fields. In contrast with the case of massless spin 3 fields (arXiv:2208.05700, 2209.03678, 2210.02842) the procedure requires to use an unconstrained formulation (arXiv:0702.161) for the Fronsdal theory. It is shown that in the unconstrained formulation there exists a four-parameter family of cubic interactions between massless spin 4 and real scalar fields, which contains four derivatives in vertices and is invariant with respect to the original gauge transformation. These vertices contain cubic interactions between auxiliary and scalar fields too. Eliminating all auxiliary fields from the obtained result using the equations of motion for the initial action gives a one-parameter family of cubic vertices for constrained massless spin 4 and real scalar fields, Such cubic vertices are invariant with respect to constrained gauge transformations of the Fronsdal theory.