Higher-spin Gauge and Trace Anomalies in Two-dimensional Backgrounds

Abstract

Two-dimensional quantum fields in electric and gravitational backgrounds can be described by conformal field theories, and hence all the physical (covariant) quantities can be written in terms of the corresponding holomorphic quantities. In this paper, we first derive relations between covariant and holomorphic forms of higher-spin currents in these backgrounds, and then, by using these relations, obtain higher-spin generalizations of the trace and gauge (or gravitational) anomalies up to spin 4. These results are applied to derive higher-moments of Hawking fluxes in black holes in a separate paper arXiv:0710.0456.