Unconstrained off-shell superfield formulation of 4D, $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 2 supersymmetric higher spins

We present, for the first time, the complete off-shell 4D,$$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 2 superfield actions for any free massless integer spin s ≥ 2 fields, using the $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 2 harmonic super-space approach. The relevant gauge supermultiplet is accommodated by two real analytic bosonic superfields $$ {h}_{\alpha \left(s-1\right)\dot{\alpha}\left(s-1\right)}^{++} $$ h α s − 1 α ̇ s − 1 + + , $$ {h}_{\alpha \left(s-2\right)\dot{\alpha}\left(s-2\right)}^{++} $$ h α s − 2 α ̇ s − 2 + + and two conjugated complex analytic spinor superfields $$ {h}_{\alpha \left(s-1\right)\dot{\alpha}\left(s-1\right)}^{+3} $$ h α s − 1 α ̇ s − 1 + 3 , $$ {h}_{\alpha \left(s-2\right)\dot{\alpha}\left(s-1\right)}^{+3} $$ h α s − 2 α ̇ s − 1 + 3 , where α(s) := (α1. . . αs),$$ \dot{\alpha} $$ α ̇ (s) := ($$ \dot{\alpha} $$ α ̇ 1. . .$$ \dot{\alpha} $$ α ̇ s). Like in the harmonic superspace formulations of $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 2 Maxwell and supergravity theories, an infinite number of original off-shell degrees of freedom is reduced to the finite set (in WZ-type gauge) due to an infinite number of the component gauge parameters in the analytic superfield parameters. On shell, the standard spin content (s,s−1/2,s−1/2,s−1) is restored. For s = 2 the action describes the linearized version of “minimal” $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 2 Einstein supergravity.

The 3d $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 6 bootstrap: from higher spins to strings to membranes

We study the space of 3d $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 6 SCFTs by combining numerical bootstrap techniques with exact results derived using supersymmetric localization. First we derive the superconformal block decomposition of the four-point function of the stress tensor multiplet superconformal primary. We then use supersymmetric localization results for the $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 6 U(N)k × U(N + M)−k Chern-Simons-matter theories to determine two protected OPE coefficients for many values of N, M, k. These two exact inputs are combined with the numerical bootstrap to compute precise rigorous islands for a wide range of N, k at M = 0, so that we can non-perturbatively interpolate between SCFTs with M-theory duals at small k and string theory duals at large k. We also present evidence that the localization results for the U(1)2M × U (1 + M)−2M theory, which has a vector-like large-M limit dual to higher spin theory, saturates the bootstrap bounds for certain protected CFT data. The extremal functional allows us to then conjecturally reconstruct low-lying CFT data for this theory.

A calculation of the Weyl anomaly for 6D conformal higher spins

In this work we continue the study of the one-loop partition function for higher derivative conformal higher spin (CHS) fields in six dimensions and its holographic counterpart given by massless higher spin Fronsdal fields in seven dimensions.In going beyond the conformal class of the boundary round 6-sphere, we start by considering a Ricci-flat, but not conformally flat, boundary and the corresponding Poincaré-Einstein space-filling metric. Here we are able to match the UV logarithmic divergence of the boundary with the IR logarithmic divergence of the bulk, very much like in the known 4D/5D setting, under the assumptions of factorization of the higher derivative CHS kinetic operator and WKB-exactness of the heat kernel of the dual bulk field. A key technical ingredient in this construction is the determination of the fourth heat kernel coefficient b6 for Lichnerowicz Laplacians on both 6D and 7D Einstein manifolds. These results allow to obtain, in addition to the already known type-A Weyl anomaly, two of the three independent type-B anomaly coefficients in terms of the third, say c3 for instance.In order to gain access to c3, and thus determine the four central charges independently, we further consider a generic non Ricci-flat Einstein boundary. However, in this case we find a mismatch between boundary and bulk computations for spins higher than two. We close by discussing the nature of this discrepancy and perspectives for a possible amendment.

Higher spins from exotic dualisations

At the free level, a given massless field can be described by an infinite number of different potentials related to each other by dualities. In terms of Young tableaux, dualities replace any number of columns of height hi by columns of height D − 2 − hi, where D is the spacetime dimension: in particular, applying this operation to empty columns gives rise to potentials containing an arbitrary number of groups of D − 2 extra antisymmetric indices. Using the method of parent actions, action principles including these potentials, but also extra fields, can be derived from the usual ones. In this paper, we revisit this off-shell duality and clarify the counting of degrees of freedom and the role of the extra fields. Among others, we consider the examples of the double dual graviton in D = 5 and two cases, one topological and one dynamical, of exotic dualities leading to spin three fields in D = 3.

Hyperbolic cylinders and entanglement entropy: gravitons, higher spins, p-forms

We show that the entanglement entropy of D = 4 linearized gravitons across a sphere recently computed by Benedetti and Casini coincides with that obtained using the Kaluza-Klein tower of traceless transverse massive spin-2 fields on S1× AdS3. The mass of the constant mode on S1 saturates the Brietenholer-Freedman bound in AdS3. This condition also ensures that the entanglement entropy of higher spins determined from partition functions on the hyperbolic cylinder coincides with their recent conjecture. Starting from the action of the 2-form on S1× AdS5 and fixing gauge, we evaluate the entanglement entropy across a sphere as well as the dimensions of the corresponding twist operator. We demonstrate that the conformal dimensions of the corresponding twist operator agrees with that obtained using the expectation value of the stress tensor on the replica cone. For conformal p-forms in even dimensions it obeys the expected relations with the coefficients determining the 3-point function of the stress tensor of these fields.

NLO gravitational quartic-in-spin interaction

In this paper we derive for the first time the complete gravitational quartic-in-spin interaction of generic compact binaries at the next-to-leading order in the post-Newtonian (PN) expansion. The derivation builds on the effective field theory for gravitating spinning objects, and its recent extensions, in which new type of worldline couplings should be considered, as well as on the extension of the effective action of a spinning particle to quadratic order in the curvature. The latter extension entails a new Wilson coefficient that appears in this sector. This work pushes the precision frontier with spins at the fifth PN (5PN) order for maximally-spinning compact objects, and at the same time informs us of the gravitational Compton scattering with higher spins.