A generalized bag-like boundary condition for fields with arbitrary spin

Stokes, A. and Bennett, R. (2015) A generalized bag-like boundary condition for fields with arbitrary spin. New Journal of Physics, 17(7), 073012. (doi: 10.1088/1367-2630/17/7/073012)

Abstract

Boundary conditions (BCs) for the Maxwell and Dirac fields at material surfaces are widely-used and physically well-motivated, but do not appear to have been generalized to deal with higher spin fields. As a result there is no clear prescription as to which BCs should be selected in order to obtain physically-relevant results pertaining to confined higher spin fields. This lack of understanding is significant given that boundary-dependent phenomena are ubiquitous across physics, a prominent example being the Casimir effect. Here, we use the two-spinor calculus formalism to present a unified treatment of BCs routinely employed in the treatment of spin-$1/2$ and spin-1 fields. We then use this unification to obtain a BC that can be applied to massless fields of any spin, including the spin-2 graviton, and its supersymmetric partner the spin-$3/2$ gravitino.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: Financial support from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is greatly appreciated.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Bennett, Dr Robert
• Authors: Stokes, A., and Bennett, R.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy
• Journal Name: New Journal of Physics
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• ISSN: 1367-2630
• ISSN (Online): 1367-2630
• Published Online: 09 July 2015
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2015 IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft
• First Published: First published in New Journal of Physics 17(7): 073012
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License