The interactions that can be introduced between a massless Rarita–Schwinger field and an Abelian three-form gauge field in 11 space–time dimensions are analyzed in the context of the deformation of the "free" solution of the master equation combined with local BRST cohomology. Under the hypotheses of smoothness of the interactions in the coupling constant, locality, Poincaré invariance, Lorentz covariance, and the presence of at most two derivatives in the Lagrangian of the interacting theory (the same number of derivatives as in the free Lagrangian), we prove that there are neither cross-couplings nor self-interactions for the gravitino in D = 11. The only possible term that can be added to the deformed solution to the master equation is nothing but a generalized Chern–Simons term for the three-form gauge field, which brings contributions to the deformed Lagrangian, but does not modify the original, Abelian gauge transformations.
Publisher Correction: A space–time tradeoff for implementing a function with master equation dynamics
