Boundary conformal invariants and the conformal anomaly in five dimensions

Abstract

In odd dimensions the integrated conformal anomaly is entirely due to the boundary terms [1]. In this paper we present a detailed analysis of the anomaly in five dimensions. We give the complete list of the boundary conformal invariants that exist in five dimensions. Additionally to 8 invariants known before we find a new conformal invariant that contains the derivatives of the extrinsic curvature along the boundary. Then, for a conformal scalar field satisfying either the Dirichlet or the conformal invariant Robin boundary conditions we use the available general results for the heat kernel coefficient a5, compute the conformal anomaly and identify the corresponding values of all boundary conformal charges.