BRS Operators and Covariant Derivatives in Loop Space for P-Branes Coupled to Yang-Mills

Abstract

Canonical forms are given for the nilpotent BRS operator $\d$ and the covariant `loop space' derivative ${\cal D}_{\m}$ for the p-brane fields for all odd p. The defining characteristic of ${\cal D}_{\m}$ is that it is a functional derivative operator which generalizes the ordinary functional derivative and also commutes with $\d$. Methods of construction for the canonical forms are discussed.