From BRST to light-cone description of higher spin gauge fields

In this short note we show, at the level of action principles, how the light-cone action of higher spin gauge fields can easily be obtained from the BRST formulation through the elimination of quartets. We analyze how the algebra of cohomology classes is affected by such a reduction. By applying the reduction to the Poincare generators, we give an alternative way of analyzing the physical spectrum of the Fronsdal type actions, with or without trace condition.Comment: 13 pages Latex file, Proceedings of the Workshop "Quantum Field Theory and Hamiltonian Systems'', Caciulata, Romania, 16 - 21 Oct, 2004; more references added, acknowledgments correcte

Parent field theory and unfolding in BRST first-quantized terms

For free-field theories associated with BRST first-quantized gauge systems, we identify generalized auxiliary fields and pure gauge variables already at the first-quantized level as the fields associated with algebraically contractible pairs for the BRST operator. Locality of the field theory is taken into account by separating the space--time degrees of freedom from the internal ones. A standard extension of the first-quantized system, originally developed to study quantization on curved manifolds, is used here for the construction of a first-order parent field theory that has a remarkable property: by elimination of generalized auxiliary fields, it can be reduced both to the field theory corresponding to the original system and to its unfolded formulation. As an application, we consider the free higher-spin gauge theories of Fronsdal.Comment: LaTeX, amsart++, 40 pages, references added, final version to appear in Commun. Math. Phy

Parent form for higher spin fields on anti-de Sitter space

We construct a first order parent field theory for free higher spin gauge fields on constant curvature spaces. As in the previously considered flat case, both Fronsdal's and Vasiliev's unfolded formulations can be reached by two different straightforward reductions. The parent theory itself is formulated using a higher dimensional embedding space and turns out to be geometrically extremely transparent and free of the intricacies of both of its reductions.Comment: 39 pages, LaTeX; misprints corrected, references adde

Seiberg-Witten maps and noncommutative Yang-Mills theories for arbitrary gauge groups

Seiberg-Witten maps and a recently proposed construction of noncommutative Yang-Mills theories (with matter fields) for arbitrary gauge groups are reformulated so that their existence to all orders is manifest. The ambiguities of the construction which originate from the freedom in the Seiberg-Witten map are discussed with regard to the question whether they can lead to inequivalent models, i.e., models not related by field redefinitions.Comment: 12 pages; references added, minor misprints correcte

Surface charges and dynamical Killing tensors for higher spin gauge fields in constant curvature spaces

In the context of massless higher spin gauge fields in constant curvature spaces, we compute the surface charges which generalize the electric charge for spin one, the color charges in Yang-Mills theories and the energy-momentum and angular momentum for asymptotically flat gravitational fields. We show that there is a one-to-one map from surface charges onto divergence free Killing tensors. These Killing tensors are computed by relating them to a cohomology group of the first quantized BRST model underlying the Fronsdal action.Comment: 21 pages Latex file, references and comment adde

First order parent formulation for generic gauge field theories

We show how a generic gauge field theory described by a BRST differential can systematically be reformulated as a first order parent system whose spacetime part is determined by the de Rham differential. In the spirit of Vasiliev's unfolded approach, this is done by extending the original space of fields so as to include their derivatives as new independent fields together with associated form fields. Through the inclusion of the antifield dependent part of the BRST differential, the parent formulation can be used both for on and off-shell formulations. For diffeomorphism invariant models, the parent formulation can be reformulated as an AKSZ-type sigma model. Several examples, such as the relativistic particle, parametrized theories, Yang-Mills theory, general relativity and the two dimensional sigma model are worked out in details.Comment: 36 pages, additional sections and minor correction

Notes on the ambient approach to boundary values of AdS gauge fields

The ambient space of dimension d+2 allows to formulate both fields on AdS(d+1) and conformal fields in d dimensions such that the symmetry algebra o(d,2) is realized linearly. We elaborate an ambient approach to the boundary analysis of gauge fields on anti de Sitter spacetime. More technically, we use its parent extension where fields are still defined on AdS or conformal space through arbitrary intrinsic coordinates while the ambient construction works in the target space. In this way, a manifestly local and o(d,2)-covariant formulation of the boundary behaviour of massless symmetric tensor gauge fields on AdS(d+1) spacetime is obtained. As a byproduct, we identify some useful ambient formulation for Fronsdal fields, conformal currents and shadow fields along with a concise generating-function formulation of the Fradkin-Tseytlin conformal fields somewhat similar to the one obtained by Metsaev. We also show how this approach extends to more general gauge theories and discuss its relation to the unfolded derivation of the boundary dynamics recently proposed by Vasiliev.Comment: Slightly expanded version of the invited contribution to the J.Phys.A special volume on "Higher Spin Theories and AdS/CFT" edited by Matthias Gaberdiel and Mikhail Vasiliev; version 2: addition of 2 references, some comparisons with the standard AdS/CFT framework and comments on the scalar singleton cas

Parent formulation at the Lagrangian level

The recently proposed first-order parent formalism at the level of equations of motion is specialized to the case of Lagrangian systems. It is shown that for diffeomorphism-invariant theories the parent formulation takes the form of an AKSZ-type sigma model. The proposed formulation can be also seen as a Lagrangian version of the BV-BRST extension of the Vasiliev unfolded approach. We also discuss its possible interpretation as a multidimensional generalization of the Hamiltonian BFV--BRST formalism. The general construction is illustrated by examples of (parametrized) mechanics, relativistic particle, Yang--Mills theory, and gravity.Comment: 26 pages, discussion of the truncation extended, typos corrected, references adde

A minimal BV action for Vasiliev's four-dimensional higher spin gravity

The action principle for Vasiliev's four-dimensional higher-spin gravity proposed recently by two of the authors, is converted into a minimal BV master action using the AKSZ procedure, which amounts to replacing the classical differential forms by vectorial superfields of fixed total degree given by the sum of form degree and ghost number. The nilpotency of the BRST operator is achieved by imposing boundary conditions and choosing appropriate gauge transitions between charts leading to a globally-defined formulation based on a principal bundle.Comment: 39 pages, 1 figure. Additional comments in the conclusion