Toward higher-spin symmetry breaking in the bulk

Abstract

We present a new vacuum of the bosonic higher-spin gauge theory in d+1 dimensions, which has leftover symmetry of the Poincaré algebra in d dimensions. Its structure is very simple: the space-time geometry is that of anti–de Sitter space, while the only nonzero field is a scalar. The scalar extends along the Poincaré radial coordinate z and is shown to be linearly exact for an arbitrary mixture of its two Δ=2 and Δ=d−2 conformal branches. The obtained vacuum breaks the global higher-spin symmetry, leading to a broken phase that lives in the Minkowski space-time. Published by the American Physical Society 2024