NSR BRST

We extend the superconformal gauge BRST formalism directly to the D = 2 off-shell (1,0) and (1,1) superspaces that are appropriate to the NSR representation of superstrings. The BRST invariances for the spinning and heterotic first quantized string actions are derived for the first time in off-shell superspace.     

Iterated BRST Cohomology

The iterated BRST cohomology is studied by computing cohomology of the variational complex on the infinite order jet space of a smooth fibre bundle. This computation also provides a solution of the global inverse problem of the calculus of variations in Lagrangian field theory.     

BRST invariant N-reggeon vertex

An N-reggeon vertex is constructed with the inclusion of the contribution of the ghost coordinates. It is shown that it is projective and BRST invariant.     

BRST symmetry of field redefinitions

Field redefinitions are considered as a special case of BRST gauge fixings of more general field-enlarging transformations. At the two-loop level an extra local term in the action, the Gervais-Jevicki potential, is generated by point canonical transformations in the bosonic part of the theory. We give an example of how this additional term can be cancelled by the inclusion of the ghost fields. This is achieved through an anomalous Jacobian factor from the ghost measure.     

BRST quantization of the superparticle

We show that the quantization of the superparticle action is possible. This is done by shifts in the BRST operator and the resulting action has an infinite number of ghosts. The total BRST operator is given by an infinite sum and is shown to be nilpotent. We also obtain a BRST invariant kinetic operator that contains the dynamical, auxiliary and gauge pieces in it.     

BRST Extension of Geometric Quantization

Consider a physical system for which a mathematically rigorous geometric quantization procedure exists. Now subject the system to a finite set of irreducible first class (bosonic) constraints. It is shown that there is a mathematically rigorous BRST quantization of the constrained system whose cohomology at ghost number zero recovers the constrained quantum states. Moreover this space of constrained states has a well-defined Hilbert space structure inherited from that of the original system. Treatments of these ideas in the physics literature are more general but suffer from having states with infinite or zero "norms" and thus are not admissible as states. Also BRST operators for many systems require regularization to be well-defined. In our more restricted context, we show that our treatment does not suffer from any of these difficulties.     

Duality theorems in BRST cohomology

In classical mechanics, there is no duality theorem relating the BRST cohomologies at positive and negative ghost numbers since these generically fail to be isomorphic. It is shown in this paper, however, that a duality theorem for the BRST operator cohomology can be established in quantum mechanics. Furthermore, when the hermicity properties of the quantum BRST formalism—which are in general just formal—turn out to be actually well defined, this duality theorem also holds for the state cohomology, as a consequence of the non degenerate pairing between subspaces at positive and negative ghost numbers defined by the BRST scalar product. In the case of gauge systems quantized in the Schrödinger representation with compact gauge orbits, the duality theorem contains ordinary Poincaré duality for a compact manifold. In the Fock representation, the duality theorem sheds a new light on existing decoupling theorems. The comparison with the classical situation is also briefly discussed.     

BRST cohomology in superstring theories

Following the work of Freeman and Olive, it is shown that the operators counting the number of non-transverse modes of the superstrings in the Neveu-Schwarz-Ramond formalism are expressed as the anticommutators of the BRST charges Q with other operators. Also the cohomology of Q and the transverse state projection operators are discussed in terms of Q.     

Quantum deformation of BRST algebra

We investigate theq-deformation of the BRST algebra, the algebra of the ghost, matter and gauge fields on one spacetime point using the result of the bicovariant differential caculus. There are two nilpotent operations in the algebra, the BRST transformation _B and the derivatived. We show that one can define the covariant commutation relations among the fields and their derivatives consistently with these two operations as well as the *-operation, the antimultiplicativ e inner involution.This work is partly supported by Alexsander von Humboldt Foundation     

BRST Quantization of Unimodular Gravity

We study the quantization of two versions of unimodular gravity, namely fully diffeomorphism-invariant unimodular gravity and unimodular gravity with fixed metric determinant, utilizing standard path integral approach. We derive the BRST symmetry of effective actions corresponding to several relevant gauge conditions. We observe that for some gauge conditions, the restricted gauge structure may complicate the formulation and effective actions, in particular, if the chosen gauge conditions involve the canonical momentum conjugate to the induced metric on the spatial hypersurface. The BRST symmetry is extended further to the finite field-dependent BRST transformation, in order to establish the mapping between different gauge conditions in each of the two versions of unimodular gravity.     

Local BRST Cohomology and Covariance

The paper provides a framework for a systematic analysis of the local BRST cohomology in a large class of gauge theories. The approach is based on the cohomology of s+d in the jet space of fields and antifields, s and d being the BRST operator and exterior derivative respectively. It relates the BRST cohomology to an underlying gauge covariant algebra and reduces its computation to a compactly formulated problem involving only suitably defined generalized connections and tensor fields. The latter are shown to provide the building blocks of physically relevant quantities such as gauge invariant actions, Noether currents and gauge anomalies, as well as of the equations of motion. Received: 25 July 1996 / Accepted: 23 April 1997     

BRST cohomology in classical mechanics

The classical (non-quantum) cohomology of the Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin (BRST) symmetry in phase space is defined and worked out. No group action for the gauge transformations is assumed. The results cover, therefore, the general case of an open algebra and are valid off-shell. Each cohomology class contains all BRST invariant functions with fixed ghost number (an integer) which differ from each other by a BRST variation. If the ghost number is negative there is only the trivial class whose elements are equivalent to zero. If the ghost number is positive or zero there is a bijective correspondence between the BRST classes and those of the exterior derivative along the gauge orbits. These gauge orbits lie in the phase space surface on which the gauge generators are constrained to vanish. The BRST invariant functions of ghost numberp are then related to closedp-forms along the orbits. The addition of a BRST variation corresponds to the addition of an exact form. Some comments about the quantum case are included. The physical meaning of the classes with ghost number greater than zero is not discussed.Chercheur qualifié du Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (Belgium)     

Spacetime locality of the BRST formalism

The spacetime locality of the BRST formalism is investigated. The analysis covers gauge theories with either closed or open algebras and is undertaken in the explicit context of the antifield formulation of the BRST theory. Under appropriate conditions, the homology of the Koszul-Tate differential modulo the spacetime exterior derivative is shown to be trivial in the space of non-integrated densities with positive antighost and pure ghost numbers. As a result: (i) the solution of the master equation can be taken to be a local functional; (ii) the gauge fixed action is also a local functional provided one takes the gauge fixing fermion to be a local functional as well; and (iii) the BRST transformation is local.     

BRST analysis of general mechanical systems

We study the groups of local BRST cohomology associated to the general systems of ordinary differential equations, not necessarily Lagrangian or Hamiltonian. Starting with the involutive normal form of the equations, we explicitly compute certain cohomology groups having clear physical meaning. These include the groups of global symmetries, conservation laws and Lagrange structures. It is shown that the space of integrable Lagrange structures is naturally isomorphic to the space of weak Poisson brackets. The last fact allows one to establish a direct link between the path-integral quantization of general not necessarily variational dynamics by means of Lagrange structures and the deformation quantization of weak Poisson brackets.     

BRST Quantization of the Siegel Action

The BRST quantization of the Siegel action isstudied.     

Canonical BRST quantisation of worldsheet gravities

We reformulate the BRST quantisation of chiral Virasoro and W₃ worldsheet gravities. Our approach follows directly the classic BRST formulation of Yang-Mills theory in employing a derivative gauge condition instead of the conventional conformal gauge condition, supplemented by an introduction of momenta in order to put the ghost action back into first-order form. The consequence of these simple changes is a considerable simplification of the BRST formulation, the evaluation of anomalies and the expression of Wess-Zumino consistency conditions. In particular, the transformation rules of all fields now constitute a canonical transformation generated by the BRST operator Q, and we obtain in this reformulation a new result that the anomaly in the BRST Ward identity is obtained by application of the anomalous operator Q², calculated using operator products, to the gauge fermion.