Massive higher spin fields in curved spacetime and necessity of non-minimal couplings

Abstract: Free massive higher spin fields in weak background gravitational fields are discussed. Contrary to the spin one case, higher spin fields should have nontrivial non-minimal couplings to the curvature. A precise analysis is given for the spin 2 case, and it is shown that two conditions should be satisfied among five non-minimal coupling constants, which we derive both in the Hamiltonian and Lagrangian formalisms. It is checked that the linearized limit of the massive gravity theory indeed has the non-minimal couplings that satisfy the conditions. We also discuss the form of the non-minimal couplings for the spin 3 case.