Generalized gaugings and the field-antifield formalism

Understand

We discuss the algebra of general gauge theories that are described by the embedding tensor formalism.

• We compare the gauge transformations dependent and independent of an invariant action, and argue that the generic transformations lead to an infinitely reducible algebra.
• We connect the embedding tensor formalism to the field-antifield (or Batalin-Vilkovisky) formalism, which is the most general formulation known for general gauge theories and their quantization.
• The structure equations of the embedding tensor formalism are included in the master equation of the field-antifield formalism.