Higher spin field theory. Volume 1: Free theory (Q2184033)

1. In general I found the book to be easy to read. It starts with a short introduction and a historical treatment about the higher spin field theory in Chapter 2. Overall, I found this introductory chapter amusing and useful. It contains in one place topics that are usually scattered in the particle physics literature. Perhaps something to improve in this chapter is to give and to derive the calculations of the original papers mentioned. This is actually the whole point of a book, although I understand it is difficult to derive all previous results in a given subject, some of them should be done from the beginning to the end in full detail. 2. Chapter 3 discusses the concepts and the mathematical structures frequently mentioned in the literature. I found this to be the more useful and interesting chapter. It has both physics and abstract algebra material, which are very useful, but are never discussed in the high energy and quantum field theory books. This chapter is a good resource for the experienced researcher and should be kept as a handbook for future reference on the subject. 3. Finally chapters 4, 5 and 6 go more into the details of the field theory for higher spin fields making use of the material previously developed. Chapter 4 discusses several formulations for the Yang-Mills theory and its connection with the theory of gravitation. In chapter 5, the author explores the free field theory using several well-known field theory formulations. Finally in chapter 6, the author finishes the book discussing the details about the light-front approach of field theory.