Master equation in the general gauge: on the problem of infinite reducibility

G. A. Vilkovisky

Published 1999-01-31Version 1

The master equation is quantized. This is an example of quantization of a gauge theory with nilpotent generators. No ghosts are needed for a generation of the gauge algebra. The point about the nilpotent generators is that one can't write down a single functional integral for this theory. One has to write down a product of two coupled functional integrals and take a square root. In the special gauge where the gauge conditions are commuting, the functional integrals decouple, and one recovers the known result.