Anomalies in instanton calculus

Abstract

I develop a formalism for solving topological field theories explicitly, in the case when the explicit expression of the instantons is known. I solve topological Yang-Mills theory with the k = 1 instanton of Belavin et al. and topological gravity with the Eguchi-Hanson instanton. It turns out that naively empty theories are indeed nontrivial. Many unexpected interesting hidden quantities (punctures, contact terms, nonperturbative anomalies with or without gravity) are revealed. Topological Yang-Mills theory with G = SU(2) is not just Donaldson theory, but contains a certain link theory. Indeed, local and non-local observables have the property of marking cycles. Moreover, from topological gravity one learns that an object can be considered BRST exact only if it is so all over the moduli space M , boundary included. Being BRST exact in any interior point of M is not sufficient to make an amplitude vanish. Presumably, recursion relations and hierarchies can be found to solve topological field theories in four dimensions, in particular topological Yang-Mills theory with G = SU(2) on R 4 and topological gravity with the full set of asymptotically locally Euclidean manifolds.