Quadratic s -form field actions with semi-bounded energy

Abstract

We give in this paper a partial classification of the consistent quadratic gauge actions that can be written in terms of s-form fields. This provides a starting point to study the uniqueness of the Yang-Mills action as a deformation of Maxwell-like theories. We also show that it is impossible to write kinetic 1-form terms that can be consistently added to other 1-form actions such as tetrad gravity in four space-time dimensions even in the presence of a Minkowskian metric background.