Refining the anomaly consistency condition

Abstract

In the extended antifield formalism, a quantum BRST differential for anomalous gauge theories is constructed. Local BRST cohomological classes are characterized, besides the form degree and the ghost number, by the length of their descents and of their lifts, and this both in the standard and the extended antifield formalism. It is shown that during the BRST invariant renormalization of a local BRST cohomological class, the anomaly that can appear is constrained to be a local BRST cohomological class with a shorter descent and a longer lift than the given class. As an application of both results, a simple approach to the Adler-Bardeen theorem for the non abelian gauge anomaly is proposed. It applies independently of the gauge fixing, of power counting restrictions and does not rely on the use of the Callan-Symanzik equation.

20 pages RevTex file

References in corpus (1)

• Local BRST cohomology in gauge theories

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Refined chiral Slavnov-Taylor identities: Renormalization and Local Physics
• Classical and quantum aspects of the extended antifield formalism
• Adler-Bardeen theorem and cancellation of gauge anomalies to all orders in nonrenormalizable theories
• A note on the BRST cohomology of the extended antifield formalism