Quantisation of second class systems in the Batalin-Tyutin formalism

We review the Batalin-Tyutin approach of quantising second class systems which consists in enlarging the phase space to convert such systems into first class. The quantisation of first class systems, it may be mentioned, is already well founded. We show how the usual analysis of Batalin-Tyutin may be generalised, particularly if one is dealing with nonabelian theories. In order to gain a deeper insight into the formalism we have considered two specific examples of second class theories– the massive Maxwell theory (Proca model) and its nonabelian extension. The first class constraints and the involutive Hamiltonian are explicitly constructed. The connection of our Hamiltonian approach with the usual Lagrangian formalism is elucidated. For the Proca model we reveal the importance of a boundary term which plays a significant role in establishing an exact identification of the extra fields in the Batalin-Tyutin approach with the Stückelberg scalar. Some comments are also made concerning the corresponding identification in the nonabelian example. e-mail address: [email protected]