Geometry and dynamics of higher-spin frame fields

Understand

We give a systematic account of unconstrained free bosonic higher-spin fields on D-dimensional Minkowski and (Anti-)de Sitter spaces in the frame formalism.

• The generalized spin connections are determined by solving a chain of torsion-like constraints.
• Via a generalization of the vielbein postulate these allow to determine higher-spin Christoffel symbols, whose relation to the de Wit--Freedman connections is discussed.
• We prove that the generalized Einstein equations, despite being of higher-derivative order, give rise to the AdS Fronsdal equations in the compensator formulation.