Heat kernel approach to relations between covariant and consistent currents in chiral gauge theories

Abstract

We apply the heat kernel method to relations between covariant and consistent currents in anomalous chiral gauge theories. Banerjee et al. have shown that the relation between these currents is expressed by a "functional curl" of the covariant current. Using the heat kernel method, we evaluate the functional curl explicitly in arbitrary even dimensions. We also apply the heat kernel method to evaluate Osabe and Suzuki's results of the difference between covariant and consistent currents in two and four dimensions. Applying the arguments of Banerjee et al. to gravitational anomalies, we investigate the relationship between the covariant and consistent energy-momentum tensors. The relation is found to be expressed by a functional curl of the covariant energy-momentum tensor.