Spin-2 Quantum Gauge Theories and Perturbative Gauge Invariance

In the framework of causal perturbation theory we analyze the gauge structure of a massless self-interacting quantum tensor field. We look at this theory from a pure field theoretical point of view without assuming any geometrical aspect from general relativity. To first order in the perturbation expansion of the S-matrix we derive necessary and sufficient conditions for such a theory to be gauge invariant, by which we mean that the gauge variation of the self-coupling with respect to the gauge charge operator Q is a divergence in the sense of vector analysis. The most general trilinear self-coupling of the graviton field turns out to be the one derived from the Einstein–Hilbert action plus divergences and coboundaries.