First-Class Approaches to Massive 2-Forms

TL;DR

This paper compares Hamiltonian quantization methods for massive 2-forms, deriving covariant path integrals with Stueckelberg coupling, advancing understanding of their gauge structure.

Contribution

It introduces and compares gauge-unfixing and Batalin--Fradkin methods for quantizing massive 2-forms, providing explicit covariant path integrals.

Findings

Both methods yield Lorentz covariant path integrals.

The approaches clarify gauge fixing for massive 2-forms.

Results facilitate quantization in gauge theories with 2-forms.

Abstract

Massive 2-forms are analyzed from the point of view of the Hamiltonian quantization using the gauge-unfixing approach and respectively the Batalin--Fradkin method. Both methods finally output the manifestly Lorentz covariant path integral for 1- and 2-forms with Stueckelberg coupling.