Hamiltonian form for massless higher-spin fermions

Abstract

The action of the free massless spin-5/2 tensor-spinor field ψ_(μν) is decomposed into its canonical form. It is shown to depend on a single gauge-invariant helicity ±5/2 spinor, the transverse-traceless and γ-transverse part of the spatial components ψ_(ij), which obeys the ordinary Dirac equation. The remaining nine components are explicitly removed using invariance of the action under three local gauge functions, to each of which is associated a Lagrange multiplier, constraint variable, and gauge component. The analysis of the higher-half-integer-spin cases is then shown to follow in a uniform way, in terms of suitably defined field variables.

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