Is soft breaking of BRST symmetry consistent?
Peter Lavrov, Olaf Lechtenfeld, Alexander Reshetnyak
TL;DR
This paper investigates the concept of soft BRST symmetry breaking within the field-antifield formalism, deriving Ward identities, analyzing gauge dependence, and arguing the inconsistency of such theories.
Contribution
It proposes a general definition of soft BRST breaking, derives associated Ward identities, and critically examines the consistency of gauge theories with soft BRST symmetry breaking.
Findings
Ward identities are derived for the generating functionals.
Gauge dependence of these identities is analyzed.
Soft BRST breaking is argued to be inconsistent in gauge theories.
Abstract
A definition of soft breaking of BRST symmetry in the field-antifield formalism is proposed, valid for general gauge theories and arbitrary gauge fixing. The Ward identities for the generating functionals of Green's functions are derived, and their gauge dependence is investigated. We discuss the Gribov-Zwanziger action for the one-parameter family of R_xi gauges. It is argued that gauge theories with a soft breaking of BRST symmetry are inconsistent.
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