Causal propagation of a charged spin 3/2 field in an external electromagnetic background

Massimo Porrati, Rakibur Rahman

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    We present a Lagrangian for a massive, charged spin 3/2 field in a constant external electromagnetic background, which correctly propagates only physical degrees of freedom inside the light cone. The Velo-Zwanziger acausality and other pathologies such as loss of hyperbolicity or the appearance of unphysical degrees of freedom are avoided by a judicious choice of nonminimal couplings. No additional fields or equations besides the spin 3/2 ones are needed to solve the problem.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Article number025009
    JournalPhysical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology
    Volume80
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Aug 6 2009

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Nuclear and High Energy Physics
    • Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)

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