TDiff and Weyl Invariant Massive Spin-2: Linear Theory

Abstract

We use Kaluza-Klein reduction to construct flat-space massive spin-2 Lagrangians based on a kinetic term that has local Weyl and transverse-diffeomorphism gauge symmetries in the massless limit. This yields Lagrangians describing a free massive spin 2 which differ from the usual Fierz-Pauli theory, but are physically equivalent to it. These Lagrangians require the use of auxiliary fields, which appear naturally from the higher-dimensional construction. We discuss how these Lagrangians are related to each other and to the Fierz-Pauli theory through Stückelberg transformations, gauge fixings, and field replacements, and we use this to generalize the construction to spin-2 fields on Einstein manifolds.

37 pages, 2 figures. v3 some statements on equivalence corrected