Local BRST cohomology and Seiberg-Witten maps in noncommutative Yang-Mills theory

We analyze in detail the recursive construction of the Seiberg-Witten map and give an exhaustive description of its ambiguities. The local BRST cohomology for noncommutative Yang-Mills theory is investigated in the framework of the effective commutative Yang-Mills type theory. In particular, we show how some of the conformal symmetries get obstructed by the noncommutative deformation. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.