On Lagrangian approach to self-dual gauge fields in spacetime of nontrivial topology

Abstract

We study the Lagrangian description of chiral bosons, p-form gauge fields with (anti-)self-dual gauge field strengths, in D=2p+2 dimensional spacetime of nontrivial topology. We show that the manifestly Lorentz and diffeomorphism invariant Pasti-Sorokin-Tonin (PST) approach is consistent and produces the (anti-)self-duality equation also in topologically nontrivial spacetime. We discuss in what circumstances the nontrivial topology makes difference between two disconnected, `da-timelike' and `da-spacelike' branches of the PST system, the gauge fixed version of which are described by not manifestly invariant Henneaux-Teitelboim (HT) and Perry-Schwarz (PS) actions, respectively.

1+36 pages, JHEP class. V2: references added, misprints corrected, to appear in JHEP