A Unique Bosonic Symmetry in a 4D Field-Theoretic System (2512.15540v1)

Abstract: For the combined field-theoretic system of the four (3 + 1)-dimensional (4D) Abelian 3-form and 1-form gauge theories, we show the existence of a unique bosonic symmetry transformation that is constructed from the four infinitesimal, continuous and off-shell nilpotent symmetry transformations which exist for the Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin (BRST) quantized versions of the coupled (but equivalent) Lagrangian densities (that describe the present 4D field-theoretic system). The above off-shell nilpotent symmetry transformations are nothing but the BRST, co-BRST, anti-BRST and anti-co-BRST, under which, the Lagrangian densities transform to the total spacetime derivatives. The proof of the uniqueness of the above bosonic symmetry transformation operator crucially depends on the validity of all the four Curci-Ferrari (CF) type restrictions that exist on our theory. We highlight the importance of these CF-type restrictions, at various levels of our theoretical discussions, in the context of the unique bosonic transformation. We compare this observation against the backdrop of the three CF-type restrictions that appear in the requirements of the absolute anticommutativity of the specific set of nilpotent symmetries.