arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Laurent Baulieu.
We construct a framework which unifyies in dual pairs the fields and anti-fields of the Batalin and Vilkovisky quantization method. We consider gauge theories of p-forms coupled to Yang-Mills fields. Our algorithm generates many topological models of the Chern-Simon type or of the Donaldson-Witten type. Some of these models can undergo a partial breaking of their topological symmetries.
We investigate the properties of 2-D gravity in the Batalin and Vilkovisky quantization scheme. We find a factorized structure which exhibits duality properties analogous to those existing in the topological theories of forms. New conformal field are introduced with their invariant action.
We display properties of the general formalism which associates to any given gauge symmetry a topological action and a system of topological BRST and anti-BRST equations. We emphasize the distinction between the antighosts of the geometrical BRST equations and the antighosts occuring in field theory. We propose a transmutation mechanism between these objects. We illustrate our general presentation by examples.
We give an example of topological theory whose Hilbert space contains physical objects: the N=2 supersymmetric Lagrangian of spin-one particles moving in D-dimensional space-time equals the Lagrangian of a topological sigma model in a (D+2)-dimensional target. The equivalence is valid for a curved space-time. As an application, we calculate the deviation of spin-one particles in a Schwarzschild background (gravitational Stern-Gerlach effect).
We consider the BRST and superconformal properties of the ghost action of 2-D supergravity. Using the background spin structure on the worldsheet, we show that this action can be transformed by canonical field transformations to reach other conformal models such as the 2-D topological gravity or the chiral models for which the gauge variation of the action reproduces the left or right conformal anomaly. Our method consists in using the gravitino and its ghost as fundamental blocks to build fields with different conformal weights and statistics. This indicates in particular that the twisting of a conformal model into another one can be classically interpreted as a change of "field representation" of the superconformal symmetry.