Universal Superspace Unitary Operator and Nilpotent (Anti-)Dual-BRST Symmetries: Superfield Formalism

Abstract

We exploit the key concepts of the augmented version of superfield approach to Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin (BRST) formalism to derive the superspace (SUSP)dualunitary operator and its Hermitian conjugate and demonstrate their utility in the derivation of the nilpotent and absolutely anticommuting (anti-)dual-BRST symmetry transformations for a set of interesting models of theAbelian1-form gauge theories. These models are the one (0+1)-dimensional (1D) rigid rotor and modified versions of the two (1+1)-dimensional (2D) Proca as well as anomalous gauge theories and 2D model of a self-dual bosonic field theory. We show theuniversalityof the SUSPdualunitary operator and its Hermitian conjugate in the cases ofallthe Abelian models under consideration. These SUSP dual unitary operators, besides maintaining the explicit group structure, provide the alternatives to the dual horizontality condition (DHC) and dual gauge invariant restrictions (DGIRs) of the superfield formalism. The derivations of thedualunitary operators and corresponding (anti-)dual-BRST symmetries are completelynovelresults in our present investigation.