Why are gauge fields bosons and always spin-1?

metroplex021
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Got a quick question on gauge particles: why are they always spin-1? Is it because they are introduced into theories in the form \partial_mu +cA^mu, and hence must be vectors (given that the derivative they have to compensate is a vector?)
 
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Gauge fields are needed because without them, we would get spurious effects arising from the interchangeability of identical fermions. If you had a gauge field that was a fermion, then a vertex of the Feynman diagram would be an intersection of three fermions' world-lines, which would make it impossible to conserve angular momentum.

I don't think it's true that gauge fields are always spin-1. For example, the gauge transformations of GR are smooth coordinate transformations, and the gauge field is a rank-2 tensor, which, if we knew how to quantize it, would be spin-2.
 
A 4-vector field A^{\mu} is in the (\frac{1}{2}, \frac{1}{2}) - representation. To see this, we note that the 4-vector field has 4 components that all transform between each other under a general Lorentz transformation, thus the vector field is in an irreducible representation. A field in the (m, n)-representation has (2m + 1)(2n + 1) components. The number 4 factors as 4 \times 1 = 2 \times 2.

Therefore, the 4-vector field has to be in either (\frac{3}{2}, 0). (\frac{1}{2}, \frac{1}{2}) or (0, \frac{3}{2}) representations. But, according to the vector addition model, the first two representations allow for J = \frac{3}{2} angular momentum, only, while the second one allows for J = 0. 1. as it should be, because, under ordinary rotations, the time component of the 4-vector behaves as a scalar (J = 0), while the spatial components behave like an ordinary vector (J = 1).

There is a dictionary that transforms the components A_{a \. \dot{a}} to the components A^{\mu}:

<br /> A^{\mu} = \sigma^{\mu}_{a \, \dot{a}} \, A_{a \, \dot{a}}<br />

where, numerically it turns out that \sigma^{\mu}_{a \, \dot{a}} = (I, \vec{\sigma}), where \vec{\sigma} is a Cartesian vector whose components are the Pauli matrices.
 
That is a fantastic answer: it is appreciated. The only thing I'm not sure of is the subscript \alpha on the a in the part: does that refer to the 1/2 that labels the irrep of the Poincare group?
 
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I'm following this paper by Kitaev on SL(2,R) representations and I'm having a problem in the normalization of the continuous eigenfunctions (eqs. (67)-(70)), which satisfy \langle f_s | f_{s'} \rangle = \int_{0}^{1} \frac{2}{(1-u)^2} f_s(u)^* f_{s'}(u) \, du. \tag{67} The singular contribution of the integral arises at the endpoint u=1 of the integral, and in the limit u \to 1, the function f_s(u) takes on the form f_s(u) \approx a_s (1-u)^{1/2 + i s} + a_s^* (1-u)^{1/2 - i s}. \tag{70}...

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