Massive higher spins: effective theory and consistency

Abstract

Abstract We construct the effective field theory for a single massive higher-spin particle in flat spacetime. Positivity bounds of the S-matrix force the cutoff of the theory to be well below the naive strong-coupling scale, forbid any potential and make therefore higher- derivative operators important even at low energy. As interesting application, we discuss in detail the massive spin-3 theory and show that an extended Galileon-like symmetry of the longitudinal modes, even with spin, emerges at high energy.

Keywords

• Effective Field Theories
• Scattering Amplitudes