Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism in the functional approach to classical field theory

Klaus Fredenhagen, Katarzyna Rejzner
January 26, 2011
We develop the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism for classical field theory on generic globally hyperbolic spacetimes. A crucial aspect of our treatment is the incorporation of the principle of local covariance which amounts to formulate the theory without reference to a distinguished spacetime. In particular, this allows a homological construction of the Poisson algebra of observables in classical gravity. Our methods heavily rely on the differential geometry of configuration spaces of classical fields.

Keywords: 
perturbative AQFT, gauge field theories, Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism