General covariant gauge fixing for massless spin-two fields
- Instituto de Fisica, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, SP 05315-970 (Brazil)
- Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5B7 (Canada)
The most general covariant gauge fixing Lagrangian is considered for a spin-two gauge theory in the context of the Faddeev-Popov procedure. In general, five parameters characterize this gauge fixing. Certain limiting values for these parameters give rise to a spin-two propagator that is either traceless or transverse, but for no values of these parameters is this propagator simultaneously traceless and transverse. Having a traceless-transverse propagator ensures that only the physical degrees of freedom associated with the tensor field propagate, and hence it is analogous to the Landau gauge in electrodynamics. To obtain such a traceless-transverse propagator, a gauge fixing Lagrangian which is not quadratic must be employed; this sort of gauge fixing Lagrangian is not encountered in the usual Faddeev-Popov procedure. It is shown that when this nonquadratic gauge fixing Lagrangian is used, two fermionic and one bosonic ghosts arise. As a simple application we discuss the energy-momentum tensor of the gravitational field at finite temperature.
- OSTI ID:
- 21027907
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Journal Name: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 76; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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