Seiberg-Witten maps and anomalies in noncommutative Yang-Mills theories

A BRST-cohomological analysis of Seiberg-Witten maps and results on gauge anomalies in noncommutative Yang-Mills theories with general gauge groups are reviewed.Comment: 9 pages, talk at 9th Adriatic Meeting, Dubrovnik, Croatia, 4-14 Sept. 200

Perturbative Gauge Anomalies in the Hamiltonian Formalism: A Cohomological Analysis

The quantum action principle of renormalisation theory is applied to the antibracket-antifield formalism for Hamiltonian systems. General results on the local BRST cohomology allow one to prove that the anomalies appear in the time development of the BRST charge and violate the nilpotency of this charge. Furthermore they are equivalent to those of the Lagrangian formalism. The analysis provides a completely gauge and regularisation independent proof of Faddeev's conjecture on the relationship between gauge anomalies and Schwinger terms in the context of descent equations.Comment: 9 pages LatTeX file, ULB-PMIF-93/0

Consistent couplings between fields with a gauge freedom and deformations of the master equation

The antibracket in BRST theory is known to define a map $\rm{H^p \times H^q \longrightarrow H^{p+q+1}}$ associating with two equivalence classes of BRST invariant observables of respective ghost number p and q an equivalence class of BRST invariant observables of ghost number p+q+1. It is shown that this map is trivial in the space of all functionals, i.e., that its image contains only the zeroth class. However it is generically non trivial in the space of local functionals. Implications of this result for the problem of consistent interactions among fields with a gauge freedom are then drawn. It is shown that the obstructions to constructing such interactions lie precisely in the image of the antibracket map and are accordingly inexistent if one does not insist on locality. However consistent local interactions are severely constrained. The example of the Chern-Simons theory is considered. It is proved that the only consistent, local, Lorentz covariant interactions for the abelian models are exhausted by the non-abelian Chern-Simons extensions.Comment: 14 pages LaTeX file, ULB-PMIF-93/0

From BRST to light-cone description of higher spin gauge fields

In this short note we show, at the level of action principles, how the light-cone action of higher spin gauge fields can easily be obtained from the BRST formulation through the elimination of quartets. We analyze how the algebra of cohomology classes is affected by such a reduction. By applying the reduction to the Poincare generators, we give an alternative way of analyzing the physical spectrum of the Fronsdal type actions, with or without trace condition.Comment: 13 pages Latex file, Proceedings of the Workshop "Quantum Field Theory and Hamiltonian Systems'', Caciulata, Romania, 16 - 21 Oct, 2004; more references added, acknowledgments correcte

Master Functional And Proper Formalism For Quantum Gauge Field Theory

We develop a general field-covariant approach to quantum gauge theories. Extending the usual set of integrated fields and external sources to "proper" fields and sources, which include partners of the composite fields, we define the master functional Omega, which collects one-particle irreducible diagrams and upgrades the usual Gamma-functional in several respects. The functional Omega is determined from its classical limit applying the usual diagrammatic rules to the proper fields. Moreover, it behaves as a scalar under the most general perturbative field redefinitions, which can be expressed as linear transformations of the proper fields. We extend the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism and the master equation. The master functional satisfies the extended master equation and behaves as a scalar under canonical transformations. The most general perturbative field redefinitions and changes of gauge-fixing can be encoded in proper canonical transformations, which are linear and do not mix integrated fields and external sources. Therefore, they can be applied as true changes of variables in the functional integral, instead of mere replacements of integrands. This property overcomes a major difficulty of the functional Gamma. Finally, the new approach allows us to prove the renormalizability of gauge theories in a general field-covariant setting. We generalize known cohomological theorems to the master functional and show that when there are no gauge anomalies all divergences can be subtracted by means of parameter redefinitions and proper canonical transformations.Comment: 32 pages; v2: minor changes and proof corrections, EPJ

Seiberg-Witten maps and noncommutative Yang-Mills theories for arbitrary gauge groups

Seiberg-Witten maps and a recently proposed construction of noncommutative Yang-Mills theories (with matter fields) for arbitrary gauge groups are reformulated so that their existence to all orders is manifest. The ambiguities of the construction which originate from the freedom in the Seiberg-Witten map are discussed with regard to the question whether they can lead to inequivalent models, i.e., models not related by field redefinitions.Comment: 12 pages; references added, minor misprints correcte

Consistent Interactions between Gauge Fields and Local BRST Cohomology : The Example of Yang-Mills Models

Recent results on the cohomological reformulation of the problem of consistent interactions between gauge fields are illustrated in the case of the Yang-Mills models. By evaluating the local BRST cohomology through descent equation techniques, it is shown (i) that there is a unique local, Poincar\'e invariant cubic vertex for free gauge vector fields which preserves the number of gauge symmetries to first order in the coupling constant; and (ii) that consistency to second order in the coupling constant requires the structure constants appearing in the cubic vertex to fulfill the Jacobi identity. The known uniqueness of the Yang-Mills coupling is therefore rederived through cohomological arguments.Comment: 6 pages in LaTeX, ULB-PMIF/930

Parent form for higher spin fields on anti-de Sitter space

We construct a first order parent field theory for free higher spin gauge fields on constant curvature spaces. As in the previously considered flat case, both Fronsdal's and Vasiliev's unfolded formulations can be reached by two different straightforward reductions. The parent theory itself is formulated using a higher dimensional embedding space and turns out to be geometrically extremely transparent and free of the intricacies of both of its reductions.Comment: 39 pages, LaTeX; misprints corrected, references adde

Parent field theory and unfolding in BRST first-quantized terms

For free-field theories associated with BRST first-quantized gauge systems, we identify generalized auxiliary fields and pure gauge variables already at the first-quantized level as the fields associated with algebraically contractible pairs for the BRST operator. Locality of the field theory is taken into account by separating the space--time degrees of freedom from the internal ones. A standard extension of the first-quantized system, originally developed to study quantization on curved manifolds, is used here for the construction of a first-order parent field theory that has a remarkable property: by elimination of generalized auxiliary fields, it can be reduced both to the field theory corresponding to the original system and to its unfolded formulation. As an application, we consider the free higher-spin gauge theories of Fronsdal.Comment: LaTeX, amsart++, 40 pages, references added, final version to appear in Commun. Math. Phy

An Exotic Theory of Massless Spin-Two Fields in Three Dimensions

It is a general belief that the only possible way to consistently deform the Pauli-Fierz action, changing also the gauge algebra, is general relativity. Here we show that a different type of deformation exists in three dimensions if one allows for PT non-invariant terms. The new gauge algebra is different from that of diffeomorphisms. Furthermore, this deformation can be generalized to the case of a collection of massless spin-two fields. In this case it describes a consistent interaction among them.Comment: 21+1 pages. Minor corrections and reference adde