Related papers: Gauge fixing and equivariant cohomology
Equivariant cohomology is suggested as an alternative algebraic framework for the definition of topological field theories constructed by E. Witten circa 1988. It also enlightens the classical Faddeev Popov gauge fixing procedure.
It is shown that anti-BRST invariance in quantum gauge theories can be considered as the quantized version of the symmetry of classical gauge theories with respect to different gauge fixing mechanisms.
Equivariant cohomology is a mathematical framework particularly well adapted to a kinematical understanding of topological gauge theories of the cohomological type. It also sheds some light on gauge fixing, a necessary field theory…
Given a gauge theory with gauge group G, it is sometimes useful to find an equivalent formulation in terms of a non-trivial gauge subgroup H of G. This amounts to fixing the gauge partially from G down to H. We study this problem…
We develop a new version of the superfield Hamiltonian quantization. The main new feature is that the BRST-BFV charge and the gauge fixing Fermion are introduced on equal footing within the sigma model approach, which provides for the…
We study some graded geometric constructions appearing naturally in the context of gauge theories. Inspired by a known relation of gauging with equivariant cohomology we generalize the latter notion to the case of arbitrary Q-manifolds…
This paper provides a detailed exposition of the two main models for equivariant cohomology -- the Cartan and Weil models -- and their explicit isomorphism via the Kalkman (Mathai--Quillen) transformation. We then connect this framework to…
Recent developments concerning canonical quantisation and gauge invariant quantum mechanical systems and quantum field theories are briefly discussed. On the one hand, it is shown how diffeomorphic covariant representations of the…
A recent development of the studies on classical and quasi-classical properties of supersymmetric quantum mechanics in Witten's version is reviewed. First, classical mechanics of a supersymmetric system is considered. Solutions of the…
We develop worldline formulations of covariant fracton gauge theories. These are a one-parameter family of gauge theories of a rank-two symmetric tensor field, invariant under a scalar gauge transformation involving a double derivative.…
The problem of computing systematically the gauge invariant extension of WZW term through equivariant cohomology is addressed. The analysis done by Witten in the two-dimensional case is extended to the four-dimensional ones. While Cartan's…
Nonsingularity conditions are established for the BFV gauge-fixing fermion which are sufficient for it to lead to the correct path integral for a theory with constraints canonically quantized in the BFV approach. The conditions ensure that…
It has previously been shown that a BRST quantization on an inner product space leads to physical states of the form |ph>=e^[Q, \psi] |\phi> where |\phi> is either a trivially BRST invariant state which only depends on the matter variables,…
This paper is an extended version of the talk given at 19th Texas Symposium of Relativistic Astrophysics and Cosmology, Paris, 1998. It reviews of some recent work; mathematical details are skipped. It is well-known that a choice of gauge…
A supersymmetric gauge invariant action is constructed over any 4-dimensional Riemannian manifold describing Witten's theory of 4-monopoles. The topological supersymmetric algebra closes off-shell. The multiplets include the auxiliary…
We consider $AdS_3$ $N$-extended Chern-Simons supergravity (\`a la Achucarro-Tonswend) and we study its gauge symmetries. We promote those gauge symmetries to a BRST symmetry and we perform its quantization by choosing suitable…
We develop a geometrical structure of the manifolds $\Gamma$ and $\hat\Gamma$ associated respectively to the gauge symmetry and to the BRST symmetry. Then, we show that ($\hat\Gamma,\hat\zeta,\Gamma$), where $\hat\zeta$ is the group of BRST…
We discuss in detail the relation between the gauge fixed and gauge invariant BRST cohomology. We showed previously that in certain gauges some cohomology classes of the gauge-fixed BRST differential do not correspond to gauge invariant…
We consider the topological theory of Witten type for gauge differential p-forms. It is shown that some topological invariants such as linking numbers appear under quantization of this theory. The non-abelian generalization of the model is…
The correlation functions of supersymmetric gauge theories on a four-manifold X can sometimes be expressed in terms of topological invariants of X. We show how the existence of superconformal fixed points in the gauge theory can provide…