Finite nilpotent symmetry in Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism

Abstract

We consider the Batalin-Vilkovisky formulation of both 1-form and 2-form gauge theories in the context of generalized BRST transformations with a finite field-dependent parameter. In the usual Faddeev-Popov (FP) formulation of gauge theories such finite field-dependent BRST (FFBRST) transformations do not leave the generating functionals invariant as the path integral measure changes in a non-trivial way for finite transformations. Here we show that FFBRST transformation, with the appropriate choice of a finite field-dependent parameter, is the symmetry of the generating functionals in the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism. The finite parameter is chosen in such a way that the contribution from the Jacobian of the path integral measure is adjusted with gauge fixed fermions which do not change the generating functionals. Several examples for such finite parameters are constructed.