Higher-Dimensional BF Theories¶in the Batalin–Vilkovisky Formalism:¶The BV Action and Generalized Wilson Loops

This paper analyzes in detail the Batalin–Vilkovisky quantization procedure for BF theories on an n-dimensional manifold and describes a suitable superformalism to deal with the master equation and the search of observables. In particular, generalized Wilson loops for BF theories with additional polynomial B-interactions are discussed in any dimensions. The paper also contains the explicit proofs to the theorems stated in [16]. Received: 25 October 2000 / Accepted: 30 March 2001