Quantization of non-Abelian antisymmetric tensor field

Abstract

We have given a detailed derivation of a covariant expression for the S matrix of an antisymmetric tensor field on the basis of the canonical formulation of the theory. An important technical point in this derivation was the introduction of an additional gauge field with a suitable transformation law. A similar trick can be used in other theories with functionally dependent constraints, in particular, as we hope, in second-quantized models of relativistic strings. Our treatment also shows that the use of the BRST quantization method necessarily requires verification of the fulfillment of all the physical conditions, since otherwise physical unitarity of the theory may be lost.