English

BRST Symmetry: Boundary Conditions and Edge States in QED

High Energy Physics - Theory 2016-11-02 v3 Other Condensed Matter Superconductivity Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

In manifolds with spatial boundary, BRST formalism can be used to quantize gauge theories. We show that, in a U(1)U(1) gauge theory, only a subset of all the boundary conditions allowed by the self-adjointness of the Hamiltonian preserves BRST symmetry. Hence, the theory can be quantized using BRST formalism only when that subset of boundary conditions is considered. We also show that for such boundary conditions, there exist fermionic states which are localized near the boundary.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1604.03696,
  title  = {BRST Symmetry: Boundary Conditions and Edge States in QED},
  author = {Nirmalendu Acharyya and A. P. Balachandran and Verónica Errasti Díez and P. N. Bala Subramanian and Sachindeo Vaidya},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.03696},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

15 pages, Minor corrections