Dynamical properties of antisymmetric tensor fields

The physical degrees of freedom of free actions involving antisymmetric tensor fields are analyzed. While massless spin zero as well as massive vector particles can be represented by such fields, we show that massive scalars cannot, and that some actions have no dynamical content at all. We also show that electromagnetic (unlike gravitational) interactions cannot be included consistently in the spin zero case. Supersymmetric extension of the tensor formulation is given, and it is shown that, in analogous antisymmetric tensor-spinor incarnations, fermions cannot couple consistently to gravity.