TOPOLOGICAL FEATURES IN NON-ABELIAN GAUGE THEORY

Abstract

We discuss the BRST cohomology and exhibit a connection between the Hodge decomposition theorem and the topological properties of a two-dimensional free non-Abelian gauge theory (having no interaction with matter fields). The topological nature of this theory is encoded in the vanishing of the Laplacian operator when equations of motion are exploited. We obtain two sets of topological invariants with respect to BRST and co-BRST charges on the two-dimensional compact manifold and show that the Lagrangian density of the theory can be expressed as the sum of terms that are BRST and co-BRST invariants. Thus, this theory captures together some of the salient features of both Witten and Schwarz type of topological field theories.