BRST FORMALISM FOR SYSTEMS WITH HIGHER-ORDER DERIVATIVES OF GAUGE PARAMETERS

For a wide class of mechanical systems, invariant under gauge transfor mations with arbitrary higher order time derivatives of gauge paramete rs, the equivalence of Lagrangian and Hamiltonian BRST formalisms is p roved. It is shown that the Ostrogradsky formalism establishes the nat ural rules to relate the BFV ghost canonical pairs with the ghosts and antighosts introduced by the Lagrangian approach. Explicit relation b etween corresponding gauge-fixing terms is obtained.