ON BRST Lagrangian Formulation of Massless Higher Spin Fields

Abstract

The paper is dedicated to the blessed memory of Professor Vladislav Gavrilovich Bagrov, an outstanding Russian scientist in theoretical and mathematical physics. He had a great influence on the formation of scientific interests of dozens of scientists in Tomsk and Russia as a whole. Two of the authors (I. L. B. and V. A. K.) are grateful to one degree or another to Prof. Bagrov for a comprehensive support in the initial period of their scientific career. Two other authors (S. A. F. and A. P. I.) are familiar with and use the work of scientists from the Tomsk School of Theoretical Physics founded by Prof. Bagrov. This paper is devoted to certain aspects of the higher-spin field theory mainly initiated and continued during I. L. B. and V. A. K. work in Tomsk. We demonstrate in details the simplicity and clarity of the Lagrangian formulation for free four-dimensional massless higher-spin fields within the universal BRST approach, while describing these fields in terms of two-component spin-tensors.