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Register a new userOn Covariant Actions for Chiral $p-$Forms
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Authors
Karapet Mkrtchyan
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We construct a Lorentz and generally covariant, polynomial action for free chiral $p-$forms, classically equivalent to the Pasti-Sorokin-Tonin (PST) formulation. The minimal set up requires introducing an auxiliary $p-$form on top of the physical gauge $p-$form and the PST scalar. The action enjoys multiple duality symmetries, including those that exchange the roles of physical and auxiliary $p-$form fields. Actions of the same type are available for duality-symmetric formulations, which is demonstrated on the example of the electromagnetic field in four dimensions. There, the degrees of freedom of a single Maxwell field are described employing four distinct vector gauge fields and a scalar field.
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We review the covariant canonical formalism initiated by DAdda, Nelson and Regge in 1985, and extend it to include a definition of form-Poisson brackets (FPB) for geometric theories coupled to $p$-forms, gauging free differential algebras. The form-Legendre transformation and the form-Hamilton equations are derived from a $d$-form Lagrangian with $p$-form dynamical fields $phi$. Momenta are defined as derivatives of the Lagrangian with respect to the velocities $dphi$ and no preferred time direction is used. Action invariance under infinitesimal form-canonical transformations can be studied in this framework, and a generalized Noether theorem is derived, both for global and local symmetries. We apply the formalism to vielbein gravity in $d=3$ and $d=4$. In the $d=3$ theory we can define form-Dirac brackets, and use an algorithmic procedure to construct the canonical generators for local Lorentz rotations and diffeomorphisms. In $d=4$ the canonical analysis is carried out using FPB, since the definition of form-Dirac brackets is problematic. Lorentz generators are constructed, while diffeomorphisms are generated by the Lie derivative. A doubly covariant hamiltonian formalism is presented, allowing to maintain manifest Lorentz covariance at every stage of the Legendre transformation. The idea is to take curvatures as velocities in the definition of momenta.
In $d$ dimensions, the model for a massless $p$-form in curved space is known to be a reducible gauge theory for $p>1$, and therefore its covariant quantisation cannot be carried out using the standard Faddeev-Popov scheme. However, adding a mass term and also introducing a Stueckelberg reformulation of the resulting $p$-form model, one ends up with an irreducible gauge theory which can be quantised `a la Faddeev and Popov. We derive a compact expression for the massive $p$-form effective action, $Gamma^{(m)}_p$, in terms of the functional determinants of Hodge-de Rham operators. We then show that the effective actions $Gamma^{(m)}_p$ and $Gamma^{(m)}_{d-p-1}$ differ by a topological invariant. This is a generalisation of the known result in the massless case that the effective actions $Gamma_p$ and $Gamma_{d-p-2}$ coincide modulo a topological term. Finally, our analysis is extended to the case of massive super $p$-forms coupled to background ${cal N}=1$ supergravity in four dimensions. Specifically, we study the quantum dynamics of the following massive super $p$-forms: (i) vector multiplet; (ii) tensor multiplet; and (iii) three-form multiplet. It is demonstrated that the effective actions of the massive vector and tensor multiplets coincide. The effective action of the massive three-form is shown to be a sum of those corresponding to two massive scalar multiplets, modulo a topological term.
The equivalence between the covariant and the non-covariant version of a constrained system is shown to hold after quantization in the framework of the field-antifield formalism. Our study covers the cases of Electromagnetism and Yang-Mills fields and sheds light on some aspects of the Faddeev-Popov method, for both the coratiant and non-covariant approaches, which had not been fully clarified in the literature.
Integral forms provide a natural and powerful tool for the construction of supergravity actions. They are generalizations of usual differential forms and are needed for a consistent theory of integration on supermanifolds. The group geometrical approach to supergravity and its variational principle are reformulated and clarified in this language. Central in our analysis is the Poincare dual of a bosonic manifold embedded into a supermanifold. Finally, using integral forms we provide a proof of Gates so-called Ectoplasmic Integration Theorem, relating superfield actions to component actions.
The superform construction of supergravity actions, christened the ectoplasm method, is based on the use of a closed super d-form in the case of d space-time dimensions. In known examples, such superforms are obtained by iteratively solving nontrivial cohomological problems. The latter usually makes this scheme no less laborious than the normal coordinate method for deriving component actions for matter-coupled supergravity. In this note we present an alternative procedure to generate required superforms in four space-time dimensions, which makes use of self-dual vector multiplets. It provides the shortest derivation of chiral actions in two different theories: (i) N = 1 old minimal supergravity; and (ii) N = 2 conformal supergravity. The N = 2 superform construction is developed here for the first time. Although our consideration is restricted to the case of four dimensions, a generalization to higher dimensions is plausible.
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