One Loop Anomalies and Wess-Zumino Terms for General Gauge Theories

Abstract One-loop anomalies and their dependence on antifields for general gauge theories are investigated within a Pauli-Villars regularization scheme. For on-shell theories i.e. with open algebras or on-shell reducible theories, the antifield dependence is cohomologically non-trivial. The associated Wess-Zumino term depends also on antifields. In the classical basis the antifield-independent part of the WZ term is expressed in terms of the anomaly and finite gauge transformations by introducing gauge degrees of freedom as the extra dynamical variables. The complete WZ term is reconstructed from the antifield-independent part.