Irreducible antifield formalism for reducible constrained Hamiltonian systems

Abstract

Reducible constrained Hamiltonian systems are quantized accordingly an irreducible BRST manner. Our procedure is based on the construction of an irreducible theory which is physically equivalent with the original one. The equivalence between the two systems makes legitimate the substitution of the BRST quantization for the reducible theory by that of the irreducible system. The general formalism is illustrated in detail on a model involving abelian one- and two-form gauge fields.