BV equivalence with boundary

Abstract

An extension of the notion of classical equivalence of equivalence in the Batalin–Vilkovisky (BV) and Batalin–Fradkin–Vilkovisky (BFV) frameworks for local Lagrangian field theory on manifolds possibly with boundary is discussed. Equivalence is phrased in both a strict and a lax sense, distinguished by the compatibility between the BV data for a field theory and its boundary BFV data, necessary for quantisation. In this context, the first- and second-order formulations of nonabelian Yang–Mills and of classical mechanics on curved backgrounds, all of which admit a strict BV–BFV description, are shown to be pairwise equivalent as strict BV–BFV theories. This in particular implies that their BV complexes are quasi-isomorphic. Furthermore, Jacobi theory and one-dimensional gravity coupled with scalar matter are compared as classically equivalent reparametrisation-invariant versions of classical mechanics, but such that only the latter admits a strict BV–BFV formulation. They are shown to be equivalent as lax BV–BFV theories and to have isomorphic BV cohomologies. This shows that strict BV–BFV equivalence is a strictly finer notion of equivalence of theories.