BRST approach to higher spin field theories

Abstract

We develop the BRST approach to Lagrangian formulation for massive bosonic and massless fermionic higher spin fields on a flat space-time of arbitrary dimension. General procedure of gauge invariant Lagrangian construction describing the dynamics of the fields with any spin is given. No off-shell constraints on the fields (like tracelessness) and the gauge parameters are imposed. The procedure is based on construction of new representations for the closed algebras generated by the constraints defining irreducible representations of the Poincare group. We also construct Lagrangians describing propagation of all massive bosonic fields and massless fermionic fields simultaneously.