The Ostrogradsky prescription for BFV formalism

TL;DR

This paper extends the BFV formalism to gauge systems with higher order derivatives, deriving the BRST charge and Hamiltonian, and analyzing how ghost variable identification depends on constraint extensions.

Contribution

It introduces a method to incorporate higher order derivatives into the BFV formalism and clarifies the role of constraint extensions in ghost variable identification.

Findings

Derived higher order BRST charge and Hamiltonian.

Showed dependence of ghost variable identification on constraint extension.

Extended BFV formalism to more general gauge systems.

Abstract

Gauge-invariant systems of a general form with higher order derivatives of gauge parameters are investigated within the framework of the BFV formalism. Higher order terms of the BRST charge and BRST-invariant Hamiltonian are obtained. It is shown that the identification rules for Lagrangian and Hamiltonian ghost variables depend on the choice of the extension of constraints from the primary constraint surface.