https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-013-2508-5
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Renormalization of gauge theories without cohomology
Dipartimento di Fisica “Enrico Fermi”, Università di Pisa, and INFN, Sezione di Pisa, Largo B. Pontecorvo 3, 56127, Pisa, Italy
* e-mail: damiano.anselmi@df.unipi.it
Received:
6
April
2013
Published online:
31
July
2013
We investigate the renormalization of gauge theories without assuming cohomological properties. We define a renormalization algorithm that preserves the Batalin–Vilkovisky master equation at each step and automatically extends the classical action till it contains sufficiently many independent parameters to reabsorb all divergences into parameter-redefinitions and canonical transformations. The construction is then generalized to the master functional and the field-covariant proper formalism for gauge theories. Our results hold in all manifestly anomaly-free gauge theories, power-counting renormalizable or not. The extension algorithm allows us to solve a quadratic problem, such as finding a sufficiently general solution of the master equation, even when it is not possible to reduce it to a linear (cohomological) problem.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg and Società Italiana di Fisica, 2013