Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2015/iii/paper-46/4/c/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 46 4 c Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Let be the separated gauge-invariant insertions. Their BRST symmetry variations vanish: the gauge field strength and its gauge covariant derivatives transform by adjoint commutators, and invariant color contractions remove these commutators. Thus .
Make the infinitesimal change of integration variables in the normalized expectation of . The action is invariant up to its boundary term and, by assumption, the measure has no Jacobian anomaly. ThereforeSince is generated by the BRST charge, this is the graded BRST Ward identityHere is the graded commutator. For even it is the ordinary commutator printed in the question; for odd it is an anticommutator. Separation of the other insertions from avoids the additional coincident-point contact terms. An operator need not itself be BRST-closed for this identity to hold.
A BRST-exact insertion has zero correlation with physical, gauge-invariant insertions. This is the decoupling of BRST-exact insertions in physical correlation functions. In the associated BRST cohomology, physical information is represented by closed states or operators modulo exact ones, schematically , using the nilpotence of the BRST charge in the anomaly-free theory. Gauge-fixing fields thereby do not supply additional physical observables.
For example, the gauge parameter dependence is exact:Differentiating a normalized physical correlation function with respect to inserts this expression; the BRST Ward identity makes that derivative zero under the same invariant-measure and boundary assumptions. This illustrates gauge-fixing parameter independence from BRST symmetry.
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