Towards an exact frame formulation of conformal higher spins in three dimensions

Journal article, 2015

In this note we discuss some aspects of the frame formulation of conformal higher spins in three dimensions. We give some exact formulae for the coupled spin two - spin three part of the full higher spin theory and propose a star product Lagrangian for all spins from two and up. Since there is no consistent Lagrangian formulation based on the Poisson bracket we start the construction from the field equations in this approximation of the star product. The higher spin algebra is then realized in terms of classical variables which leads to certain important simplifications that we take advantage of. The suggested structure of the all-spin Lagrangian given here is, however, obtained using an expansion of the star product beyond the Poisson bracket in terms of multi-commutators and the Lagrangian should be viewed as a starting point for the derivation of the full theory based on a star product. How to do this is explained as well as how to include the coupling to scalar fields. We also comment on the AdS/CFT relation to four dimensions.