arXiv subjects

Maxim Grigoriev

Publications and source records attributed to Maxim Grigoriev.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Presymplectic BV-AKSZ and constrained DGCAs

The AKSZ construction encodes the Batalin-Vilkovisky formulation of a topological field theory in terms of finite-dimensional geometric data. There are at least two ways to extend this approach to nontopological gauge theories. The first, due to Costello, replaces the spacetime exterior algebra with a more general DGCA that is not freely generated. The second replaces the symplectic structure with a degenerate presymplectic structure, which may also be non-regular. In this work, we show that both approaches are special cases of a more general algebraic AKSZ construction, in which the underlying algebras are allowed to be constrained and the presymplectic structure may be degenerate and non-regular. Within this framework, we explicitly relate Costello's formulation of the Chalmers-Siegel model to the presymplectic formulation, the latter admitting a first-principles derivation. We also construct Costello-like formulations of higher-form analogues of the Chalmers-Siegel model and of self-dual higher-spin gauge theories of Yang-Mills type, obtaining in the latter case a remarkably concise description. In so doing we propose a simple algebraic construction for the corresponding source space DGCAs underlying these examples.

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arXiv2026

Asymptotic boundary structure of Lagrangian gauge theories

Given a local gauge theory on spacetime with boundary, it naturally defines another gauge theory which can be regarded as a theory of the boundary values. For Lagrangian theories, it comes equipped with the presymplectic structure which can be used to define one or another version of Hamiltonian-like formulation of the initial model. This relation is especially manifest for AKSZ sigma models and more-generally gauge PDEs with compatible presymplectic structure in which case the boundary system is again a gauge PDE with presymplectic structure. In the context of (flat space) holography one is interested in boundaries at infinity, also known as asymptotic boundaries. The gauge PDE framework naturally extends to this setup, resulting in the notion of gauge PDE with asymptotic boundaries. Although this works perfectly well at the level of equations of motion, the extension to Lagrangian systems appears quite subtle because the presymplectic structure capturing the Lagrangian is divergent at the boundary. We show that any $Q$-cocycle in the bulk (and presymplectic structure in particular) determines a pair of compatible $Q$-cocycles of the boundary gauge PDE: the renormalized one of the same ghost-degree, and the anomaly cocycle of degree one lower. For the latter, the construction is somewhat analogous to the residue map known in the context of b-geometry. The general formalism is exemplified by scalar and Maxwell fields on AdS and Minkowski spaces. It turns out that in the AdS case the natural action determined by the anomaly presymplectic structure is precisely the one known as the holographic Weyl anomaly in the AdS/CFT context while its null-infinity counterpart was known in a few very particular cases only.

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arXiv2026

Multisymplectic AKSZ sigma models

The Alexandrov-Kontsevich-Schwarz-Zaboronsky (AKSZ) construction encodes all the data of a topological sigma-model in the finite-dimensional symplectic $Q$-manifold. Relaxing the nondegeneracy condition i.e. considering a presymplectic form instead, extends the construction to non-topological models. The gauge-invariant action functional of (presymplectic) AKSZ sigma model is written in terms of space-time differential forms and can be seen as a covariant multidimensional analogue of the usual 1st order Hamiltonian action. In this work, we show that the AKSZ construction has a natural generalisation where the target space $Q$-manifold is equipped with a form of arbitrary degree $\Omega$ (possibly inhomogeneous) which is $(\mathrm{d}+L_Q)$-closed. This data defines a higher-derivative generalisation of the AKSZ action which is still invariant under the natural gauge transformations determined by $Q$ and which is efficiently formulated in terms of a version of Chern-Weil map introduced by Kotov and Strobl. It turns out that a variety of interesting gauge theories, including higher-dimensional Chern-Simons theory, MacDowell-Mansouri-Stelle-West action and self-dual gravity as well as its higher spin extension, can be concisely reformulated as such multisymplectic AKSZ models. We also present a version of the construction in the setup of PDE geometry and demonstrate that the counterpart of the multisymplectic AKSZ action is precisely the standard multisymplectic formulation, where the Chern-Weil map corresponds to the usual pullback map.

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arXiv2025

Boundary structure of gauge fields on asymptotically AdS spaces

We study the boundary structure of asymptotically AdS gravity and (gauge) fields defined on this background by employing the gauge PDE approach. The essential step of the construction is the incorporation of the boundary-defining function among the fields of the theory, which allows us to realise the asymptotic boundary as a space-time submanifold by employing the gauge PDE implementation of Penrose's concept of asymptotically-simple space. In so doing the gauge PDE describing the boundary structure is obtained by restricting to the boundary of spacetime and simultaneously restricting to the boundary of the field space by setting the boundary defining function to zero. To implement this step systematically we introduce a notion of $Q$-boundary which seems to be new. The main concrete result of this work is the construction of an efficient boundary calculus, which gives a recursive procedure to obtain the explicit form of the equations satisfied by the boundary fields and their gauge transformations for boundary dimension $d \geq 3$. These include obstruction equations (such as Bach equation or Yang-Mills equation for $d=4$) and generalised conservation equations in the subleading sector. In particular, we derive the explicit form of the higher conformal Yang-Mills equation for $d=8$. The approach is very general and, in principle, applies to generic (gauge) fields on the Einstein gravity background producing a conformally-invariant gauge theory on the boundary, which describes their boundary structure. It can be considered an extension of the Fefferman-Graham construction, which takes into account both the leading and subleading sectors of the bulk fields.

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arXiv2025

Background fields in the presymplectic BV-AKSZ approach

The Batalin-Vilkovisky formulation of a general local gauge theory can be encoded in the structure of a so-called presymplectic gauge PDE -- an almost-$Q$ bundle over the spacetime exterior algebra, equipped with a compatible presymplectic structure. In the case of a trivial bundle and an invertible presymplectic structure, this reduces to the well-known AKSZ sigma model construction. We develop an extension of the presympletic BV-AKSZ approach to describe local gauge theories with background fields. It turns out that such theories correspond to presymplectic gauge PDEs whose base spaces are again gauge PDEs describing background fields. As such, the geometric structure is that of a bundle over a bundle over a given spacetime. Gauge PDEs over backgrounds arise naturally when studying linearisation, coupling (gauge) fields to background geometry, gauging global symmetries, etc. Less obvious examples involve parametrised systems, Fedosov equations, and the so-called homogeneous (presymplectic) gauge PDEs. The latter are the gauge-invariant generalisations of the familiar homogeneous PDEs and they provide a very concise description of gauge fields on homogeneous spaces such as higher spin gauge fields on Minkowski, (A)dS, and conformal spaces. Finally, we briefly discuss how the higher-form symmetries and their gauging fit into the framework using the simplest example of the Maxwell field.

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arXiv2025

Presymplectic BV-AKSZ for $N=1$, $D=4$ Supergravity

We elaborate on the presymplectic BV-AKSZ approach to supersymmetric systems. In particular, we construct such a formulation for the $N=1$, $D=4$ supergravity by taking as a target space the Chevalley-Eilenberg complex of the super-Poincar\'e algebra which, as we demonstrate, admits an invariant presymplectic structure of degree $3$. This data encodes a full-scale Batalin-Vilkovisky formulation of the system, including a concise form of the BV master action. The important feature of (presymplectic) AKSZ models is that, at least at the level of equations of motion, they can be equivalently reformulated in the spacetime obtained by adding or eliminating contractible dimensions. For instance, the presymplectic AKSZ formulation of gravity can be lifted to the respective ``group manifold'', endowing it with the structure of a principle bundle and the Cartan connection therein, at least locally. In particular, the so-called rheonomy conditions emerge as a part of the presymplectic AKSZ equations of motion. The analogous considerations apply to supergravity and its uplift to superspace. We also study general presymplectic BV-AKSZ models related by adding or removing contractible spacetime dimensions in order to systematically relate the spacetime and superspace formulations of the same system within the AKSZ-like framework. These relations are then illustrated using the supersymmetric particle as a toy model.

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arXiv2024

Consistent deformations in the presymplectic BV-AKSZ approach

We develop a framework for studying consistent interactions of local gauge theories, which is based on the presymplectic BV-AKSZ formulation. The advantage of the proposed approach is that it operates in terms of finite-dimensional spaces and avoids working with quotient spaces such as local functionals or functionals modulo on-shell trivial ones. The structure that is being deformed is that of a presymplectic gauge PDE, which consists of a graded presymplectic structure and a compatible odd vector field. These are known to encode the Batalin--Vilkovisky (BV) formulation of a local gauge theory in terms of the finite dimensional supergeometrical object. Although in its present version the method is limited to interactions that do not deform the presymplectic structure and relies on some natural assumptions, it gives a remarkably simple way to analyse consistent interactions. The approach can be considered as the BV-AKSZ extension of the frame-like approach to consistent interactions. We also describe the underlying homological deformation theory, which turns out to be slightly unusual compared to the standard deformations of differential graded Lie algebras. As an illustration, the Chern-Simons and YM theories are rederived starting from their linearized versions.

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arXiv2024

Massive bigravity as a presymplectic BV-AKSZ sigma-model

We propose a presymplectic BV-AKSZ sigma model encoding the ghost-free massive bigravity theory action as well as its Batalin-Vilkovisky extension in terms of the finite-dimensional graded geometry of the target space. A characteristic feature of the construction is that the target space is realised as a quasi-regular submanifold of a linear graded manifold which, in turn, is a direct product of two copies of the shifted Poincar\'e or (anti-)de Sitter Lie algebra. This graded manifold comes equipped with a natural presymplectcic structure and the compatible pre-$Q$ structure which is a sum of the Chevalley-Eilenberg differentials of each copy of the Lie algebra and the interaction term. The constraints determining the submanifold are the supergeometrical realisation of the known Deser-van Nieuwenhuizen condition and its descendant.

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arXiv2024

Weak Gauge PDEs

Gauge PDEs generalise the AKSZ construction when dealing with generic local gauge theories. Despite being very flexible and invariant, these geometrical objects are usually infinite-dimensional and are difficult to define explicitly, just like standard infinitely-prolonged PDEs. We propose a notion of a weak gauge PDE in which the nilpotency of the BRST differential is relaxed in a controllable way. In this approach a nontopological local gauge theory can be described in terms of a finite-dimensional geometrical object. Moreover, among the equivalent weak gauge PDEs describing a given system, a minimal one can usually be found and is unique in a certain sense. In the case of a Lagrangian system, the respective weak gauge PDE naturally arises from its weak presymplectic formulation. We prove that any weak gauge PDE determines the standard jet-bundle Batalin-Vilkovisky formulation of the underlying gauge theory, giving an unambiguous physical interpretation of these objects. The formalism is illustrated by a few examples, including the non-Lagrangian self-dual Yang-Mills theory and a finite jet-bundle. We also discuss possible applications of the approach to the characterisation of those infinite-dimensional gauge PDEs that correspond to local theories.

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arXiv2024

Asymptotic symmetries of gravity in the gauge PDE approach

We propose a framework to study local gauge theories on manifolds with boundaries and asymptotic symmetries, which is based on representing them as so-called gauge PDEs. These objects extend the conventional BV-AKSZ sigma-models to the case of not necessarily topological and diffeomorphism invariant systems and are known to behave well with respect to restrictions to submanifolds and boundaries. We introduce the notion of gauge PDE with boundaries, which takes into account generic boundary conditions, and apply the framework to asymptotically flat gravity. In so doing we start with a suitable representation of gravity as a gauge PDE with boundaries which implements the Penrose's description of asymptotically simple spacetimes. We then derive the minimal model of the gauge PDE induced on the boundary and observe that it provides the Cartan (frame-like) description of a (curved) conformal Carollian structure on the boundary. Furthermore, imposing a suitable version of the familiar boundary conditions in the induced boundary gauge PDE immediately leads to the conventional BMS algebra of asymptotic symmetries. Finally, we briefly sketch the construction in the case of asymptotically (A)dS gravity.

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arXiv2024

Presymplectic minimal models of local gauge theories

We elaborate on the recently proposed notion of a weak presymplectic gauge PDE. It is a $\mathbb{Z}$-graded bundle over the space-time manifold, equipped with a degree $1$ vector field and a compatible graded presymplectic structure. This geometrical data naturally defines a Lagrangian gauge field theory. Moreover, it encodes not only the Lagrangian of the theory but also its full-scale Batalin-Vilkovisky (BV) formulation. In particular, the respective field-antifield space arises as a symplectic quotient of the super-jet bundle of the initial fiber bundle. A remarkable property of this approach is that among the variety of presymplectic gauge PDEs encoding a given gauge theory we can pick a minimal one that usually turns out to be finite-dimensional, and unique in a certain sense. The approach can be considered as an extension of the familiar AKSZ construction to not necessarily topological and diffeomorphism-invariant theories. We present a variety of examples including $p$-forms, chiral Yang-Mills theory, Holst gravity, and conformal gravity. We also explain the explicit relation to the non-BV-BRST version of the formalism, which happens to be closely related to the covariant phase space and the multisymplectic approaches.

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arXiv2023

Notes on the $L_\infty$-approach to local gauge field theories

It is well known that a $Q$-manifold gives rise to an $L_\infty$-algebra structure on the tangent space at a fixed point of the homological vector field. From the field theory perspective this implies that the expansion of a classical Batalin-Vilkovisky (BV) formulation around a vacuum solution can be equivalently cast into the form of an $L_\infty$-algebra. In so doing, the BV symplectic structure determines a compatible cyclic structure on the $L_\infty$-algebra. Moreover, $L_\infty$ quasi-isomorphisms correspond to so-called equivalent reductions (also known as the elimination of generalized auxiliary fields) of the respective BV systems. Although at the formal level the relation is straightforward, its implementation in field theory requires some care because the underlying spaces become infinite-dimensional. In the case of local gauge theories, the relevant spaces can be approximated by nearly finite-dimensional ones through employing the jet-bundle technique. In this work we study the $L_\infty$-counterpart of the jet-bundle BV approach and generalise it to a more flexible setup of so-called gauge PDEs. It turns out that in the latter case the underlying $L_\infty$-structure is analogous to that of Chern-Simons theory. In particular, the underlying linear space is a module over the space-time exterior algebra and the higher $L_\infty$-maps are multilinear. Furthermore, a counterpart of the cyclic structure turns out to be degenerate and possibly nonlinear, and corresponds to a compatible presymplectic structure which is known to encode the BV symplectic structure and hence the full-scale Lagrangian BV formulation. Moreover, given a degenerate cyclic structure one can consistently relax the $L_\infty$-axioms in such a way that the formalism still describes non-topological models but involves only finitely-generated modules, as we illustrate in the example of Yang-Mills theory.

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arXiv2023

Ambient-space variational calculus for gauge fields on constant-curvature spacetimes

We propose a systematic generating procedure to construct free Lagrangians for massive, massless and partially massless, totally-symmetric tensor fields on $AdS_{d+1}$ starting from the BRST Lagrangian description of massless fields in the flat ambient space $\mathbb{R}^{d,2}$. A novelty is that the Lagrangian is described by a $d+1$ form on $\mathbb{R}^{d,2}$ whose pullback to $AdS_{d+1}$ gives the genuine Lagrangian defined on anti de Sitter spacetime. Our derivation uses the triplet formulation originating from the first-quantized BRST approach, where the action principle is determined by the BRST operator and the inner product of a first-quantised system. In this way we build, in a manifestly $so(2,d)$-covariant manner, a unifying action principle for the three types of fields mentioned above. In particular, our derivation justifies the form of some actions proposed earlier for massive and massless fields on AdS. We also give a general setup for ambient Lagrangians in terms of the respective jet-bundles and variational bi-complexes. In particular we introduce a suitable ambient-space Euler-Lagrange differential which allows to derive the equation of motion ambiently, i.e. without the need to explicitly derive the respective spacetime Lagrangian.

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arXiv2023

Covariant action for conformal higher spin gravity

Conformal Higher Spin Gravity is a higher spin extension of Weyl gravity and is a family of local higher spin theories, which was put forward by Segal and Tseytlin. We propose a manifestly covariant and coordinate-independent action for these theories. The result is based on an interplay between higher spin symmetries and deformation quantization: a locally equivalent but manifestly background-independent reformulation, known as the parent system, of the off-shell multiplet of conformal higher spin fields (Fradkin-Tseytlin fields) can be interpreted in terms of Fedosov deformation quantization of the underlying cotangent bundle. This brings into the game the invariant quantum trace, induced by the Feigin-Felder-Shoikhet cocycle of Weyl algebra, which extends Segal's action into a gauge invariant and globally well-defined action functional on the space of configurations of the parent system. The same action can be understood within the worldline approach as a correlation function in the topological quantum mechanics on the circle.

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arXiv2023

Presymplectic gauge PDEs and Lagrangian BV formalism beyond jet-bundles

A gauge PDE is a geometrical object underlying what physicists call a local gauge field theory defined at the level of equations of motion (i.e. without specifying Lagrangian) in terms of Batalin-Vilkovisky (BV) formalism. This notion extends the BV formulation in terms of jet-bundles on the one hand and the geometrical approach to PDEs on the other hand. In this work we concentrate on gauge PDEs equipped with a compatible presymplectic structure and show that under some regularity conditions this data defines a jet-bundle BV formulation. More precisely, the BV jet-bundle arises as the symplectic quotient of the super jet-bundle of the initial gauge PDE. In this sense, presymplectic gauge PDEs give an invariant geometrical approach to Lagrangian gauge systems, which is not limited to jet-bundles. Furthermore, the presymplectic gauge PDE structure naturally descends to space-time submanifolds (in particular, boundaries, if any) and, in this respect, is quite similar to AKSZ sigma models which are long known to have this feature. We also introduce a notion of a weak presymplectic gauge PDE, where the nilpotency of the differential is replaced by a presymplectic analog of the BV master equation, and show that it still defines a local BV system. This allows one to encode BV systems in terms of finite-dimensional graded geometry, much like the AKSZ construction does in the case of topological models.

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arXiv2022

A toy model for background independent string field theory

We study gauge theories of background fields associated to BRST quantized spinning particle models and identify background-independent algebraic structures which allow to systematically reduce the spectrum of fields and subject some of them to dynamical equations of motion. More specifically, we construct a manifestly background-independent extension of the model based on $N=2$ spinning particle. The resulting system describes an on-shell spin-1 field coupled to off-shell background fields including metric and dilaton. Tensoring with a given Lie algebra results in a non-abelian extension of the model.

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arXiv2022

Presymplectic BV-AKSZ formulation of Conformal Gravity

We elaborate on the presymplectic BV-AKSZ approach to local gauge theories and apply it to conformal gravity. More specifically, we identify a compatible presymplectic structure on the minimal model of the total BRST complex of this theory and show that together with the BRST differential it determines a full-scale BV formulation for a specific frame-like action which seems to be previously unknown. Remarkably, the underlying frame-like description requires no artificial off-shell constraints. Instead, the action becomes equivalent to the usual conformal gravity one, upon gauging away all the variables belonging to the kernel of the presymplectic structure. Finally, we show how the presymplectic BV-AKSZ approach extends to generic gauge theories.

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arXiv2022

Snowmass White Paper: Higher Spin Gravity and Higher Spin Symmetry

Higher Spin Gravity refers to extensions of gravity including at least one field of spin greater than two. These extensions are expected to provide manageable models of quantum gravity thanks to the infinite-dimensional (higher spin) gauge symmetry constraining them. One of the key aspects of Higher Spin Gravity/Symmetry is the range and diversity of topics it embraces: (a) higher spin fields play a role in quantum gravity, AdS/CFT, string theory and are expected to have important consequences in cosmology and black hole physics; (b) higher spin symmetry finds applications in Conformal Field Theories, condensed matter systems and dualities therein; (c) these models often rely on tools developed in the study of the mathematical foundations of QFT or in pure mathematics: from deformation quantization and non-commutative geometry to conformal geometry, graded geometry (including BV-BRST quantization), and geometry of PDEs. Recent exciting applications also involve (d) modelling the coalescence of black hole binaries as scattering of massive higher spin particles.

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