On the frame-like formulation of mixed-symmetry massless fields in (A)dSd

The frame-like covariant Lagrangian formulation of bosonic and fermionic mixed-symmetry type higher spin massless fields propagating on the AdS(d), background is proposed. Higher spin fields are described in terms of gauge p-forms which carry tangent indices representing certain traceless tensor or gamma transversal spinor-tensor representations of the AdS(d) algebra o(d - 1, 2) (or o(d, 1) for bosonic fields in dS(d)). Manifestly gauge invariant Abelian higher spin field strengths are introduced for the general case. We describe the general framework and demonstrate how it works for the mixed-symmetry type fields associated with the three-cell "hook" and arbitrary two-row rectangular tableaux. The manifestly gauge invariant actions for these fields are presented in a simple form. The flat limit is also analyzed. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.