An extension of the notion of classical equivalence of equivalence in the Batalin--(Fradkin)--Vilkovisky (BV) and (BFV) framework for local Lagrangian field theory on manifolds possibly with boundary is discussed. Equivalence is phrased in both a str
ict and a lax sense, distinguished by the compatibility between the BV data for a field theory and its boundary BFV data, necessary for quantisation. In this context, the first- and second-order formulations of non-Abelian Yang--Mills and of classical mechanics on curved backgrounds, all of which admit a strict BV-BFV description, are shown to be pairwise equivalent as strict BV-BFV theories. This in particular implies that their BV-complexes are quasi-isomorphic. Furthermore, Jacobi theory and one-dimensional gravity coupled with scalar matter are compared as classically-equivalent reparametrisation-invaria
We compute partition functions of Chern-Simons type theories for cylindrical spacetimes $I times Sigma$, with $I$ an interval and $dim Sigma = 4l+2$, in the BV-BFV formalism (a refinement of the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism adapted to manifolds with
boundary and cutting-gluing). The case $dim Sigma = 0$ is considered as a toy example. We show that one can identify - for certain choices of residual fields - the physical part (restriction to degree zero fields) of the BV-BFV effective action with the Hamilton-Jacobi action computed in the companion paper [arXiv:2012.13270], without any quantum corrections. This Hamilton-Jacobi action is the action functional of a conformal field theory on $Sigma$. For $dim Sigma = 2$, this implies a version of the CS-WZW correspondence. For $dim Sigma = 6$, using a particular polarization on one end of the cylinder, the Chern-Simons partition function is related to Kodaira-Spencer gravity (a.k.a. BCOV theory); this provides a BV-BFV quantum perspective on the semiclassical result by Gerasimov and Shatashvili.
Mechanical systems (i.e., one-dimensional field theories) with constraints are the focus of this paper. In the classical theory, systems with infinite-dimensional targets are considered as well (this then encompasses also higher-dimensional field the
ories in the hamiltonian formalism). The properties of the Hamilton-Jacobi (HJ) action are described in details and several examples are explicitly computed (including nonabelian Chern-Simons theory, where the HJ action turns out to be the gauged Wess-Zumino-Witten action). Perturbative quantization, limited in this note to finite-dimensional targets, is performed in the framework of the Batalin-Vilkovisky (BV) formalism in the bulk and of the Batalin-Fradkin-Vilkovisky (BFV) formalism at the endpoints. As a sanity check of the method, it is proved that the semiclassical contribution of the physical part of the evolution operator is still given by the HJ action. Several examples are computed explicitly. In particular, it is shown that the toy model for nonabelian Chern-Simons theory and the toy model for 7D Chern-Simons theory with nonlinear Hitchin polarization do not have quantum corrections in the physical part (the extension of these results to the actual cases is discussed in the companion paper [arXiv:2012.13983]). Background material for both the classical part (symplectic geometry, generalized generating functions, HJ actions, and the extension of these concepts to infinite-dimensional manifolds) and the quantum part (BV-BFV formalism) is provided.
We analyse the boundary structure of General Relativity in the coframe formalism in the case of a lightlike boundary, i.e., when the restriction of the induced Lorentzian metric to the boundary is degenerate. We describe the associated reduced phase
space in terms of constraints on the symplectic space of boundary fields. We explicitly compute the Poisson brackets of the constraints and identify the first- and second-class ones. In particular, in the 3+1 dimensional case, we show that the reduced phase space has two local degrees of freedom, instead of the usual four in the non-degenerate case.
We construct a special class of semiclassical Fourier integral operators whose wave fronts are symplectic micromorphisms. These operators have very good properties: they form a category on which the wave front map becomes a functor into the cotangent
microbundle category, and they admit a total symbol calculus in terms of symplectic micromorphisms enhanced with half-density germs. This new operator category encompasses the semi-classical pseudo-differential calculus and offers a functorial framework for the semi-classical analysis of the Schrodinger equation. We also comment on applications to classical and quantum mechanics as well as to a functorial and geometrical approach to the quantization of Poisson manifolds.
In this note the AKSZ construction is applied to the BFV description of the reduced phase space of the Einstein-Hilbert and of the Palatini--Cartan theories in every space-time dimension greater than two. In the former case one obtains a BV theory fo
r the first-order formulation of Einstein--Hilbert theory, in the latter a BV theory for Palatini--Cartan theory with a partial implementation of the torsion-free condition already on the space of fields. All theories described here are
An explicit, geometric description of the first-class constraints and their Poisson brackets for gravity in the Palatini-Cartan formalism (in space-time dimension greater than three) is given. The corresponding Batalin- Fradkin-Vilkovisky (BFV) formulation is also developed.
We study an equivariant extension of the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism for quantizing gauge theories. Namely, we introduce a general framework to encompass failures of the quantum master equation, and we apply it to the natural equivariant extension o
f AKSZ solutions of the classical master equation (CME). As examples of the construction, we recover the equivariant extension of supersymmetric Yang-Mills in 2d and of Donaldson-Witten theory.
These notes give an introduction to the mathematical framework of the Batalin-Vilkovisky and Batalin-Fradkin-Vilkovisky formalisms. Some of the presented content was given as a mini course by the first author at the 2018 QSPACE conference in Benasque.
In this note, we revisit the $Theta$-invariant as defined by R. Bott and the first author. The $Theta$-invariant is an invariant of rational homology 3-spheres with acyclic orthogonal local systems, which is a generalization of the 2-loop term of the
Chern-Simons perturbation theory. The $Theta$-invariant can be defined when a cohomology group is vanishing. In this note, we give a slightly modified version of the $Theta$-invariant that we can define even if the cohomology group is not vanishing.
