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Quantization of deformed reducible gauge theories

A. A. Averianov1,3,*, A. O. Barvinsky2,4,†, I. L. Buchbinder3,5,‡, V. A. Krykhtin6,§, and D. V. Nesterov2,∥

  • *Contact author: averianov.aa@phystech.edu
  • †Contact author: barvin@lpi.ru
  • ‡Contact author: buchbinder@theor.jinr.ru
  • §Contact author: krykhin@tpu.ru
  • ∥Contact author: nesterov@lpi.ru
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 065018 – Published 17 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/yxrz-7985

Abstract

We consider a general reducible gauge theory deformed by mass or/and interaction terms violating gauge invariance. It is shown that in the Abelian case, by using the Stueckelberg-type procedure, this theory with broken gauge symmetry can be converted into exactly gauge-invariant theory which under a suitable choice of gauge conditions can be treated within the formalism of minimal wave operators manageable by the covariant Schwinger-DeWitt technique. We carry out quantization of such a theory in general terms when the initial generators of gauge transformations are of the first and second stages of reducibility and derive its partition function in terms of the functional integral with all corresponding ghost fields. This method is applied to quantization of massive fermionic totally antisymmetric tensor field models in anti–de Sitter space. One-loop quantum effective action for these models is derived in the form of the functional determinants of special Dirac-type differential operators in various dimensions.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 065018– Published 17 September, 2026
  • Received 13 May 2026
  • Accepted 17 July 2026
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