Forbidden mass range for spin-2 field theory in de Sitter spacetime

Abstract

We study the quantization of free massive fields with spin 1 and 2 in the expanding part of de Sitter spacetime. Creation and annihilation operators are identified and their commutators are given. It is found that the square of the mass M2 cannot be between 0 (linearized gravity) and 2 3 × (cosmological constant) in the spin-2 case because of the appearance of negative norm states. We also study the massless limit of the spin-2 field theory. We find that there are no infrared divergences when it is coupled to conserved currents and that it coincides with the massless theory at the tree level, unlike in flat spacetime. © 1987.