Massless DKP fields in Riemann-Cartan spacetimes

Abstract

We study massless Duffin-Kemmer-Petiau (DKP) fields in the context of Einstein-Cartan gravitation theory, interacting via minimal coupling procedure. In the case of an identically vanishing torsion (Riemannian spacetimes) we show that there exist local gauge symmetries which reproduce the usual gauge symmetries for the massless scalar and electromagnetic fields. on the other hand, similarly to what happens with the Maxwell theory, a nonvanishing torsion, in general, breaks the usual U(1) local gauge symmetry of the electromagnetic field or, from a different point of view, imposes conditions on the torsion.