Quantum Gravity unit visitor seminar: Higher Spin Gravity I: A New Paradigm for Relativistic Quantum Fields

Quantum Gravity Unit visitor seminar.

Speaker: Prof. Per Sundell, Andres Bello Natl. U.

Title: Higher Spin Gravity I: A New Paradigm for Relativistic Quantum Fields

Abstract:While the formulation of particle dynamics in terms of fields on metric backgrounds clashes with gravity at the quantum level, it clashes with higher spin gauge symmetries already at the classical level. In this talk, after a brief motivation, we review the development of higher spin gravity from free fields a la Bargmann--Wigner and Fronsdal via the Fradkin--Vasiliev mechanism and Vasiliev's unfolded formulation of interacting, classical fields to its more recent, dual formulation as an ambi-dimensional, noncommutative, topological quantum field theory a la Alexandrov--Kontsevich--Schwarz--Zaboronsky whose observables encode physical properties of self-interacting, massless, higher spin particles in a natural albeit unconventional fashion starting from first principles based on deformation quantization and noncommutative geometry. We conclude by addressing the extent to which the emergent framework can be extended to a broader range of models including ordinary gravity and quantum mechanics.