BECCHI-ROUET-STORA COHOMOLOGY OF ZERO CURVATURE SYSTEMS .1. THE COMPLETE LADDER CASE

We present here the zero curvature formulation for a wide class of fie ld theory models. This formalism, which relies on the existence of an operator delta which decomposes the exterior space-time derivative as a BRS commutator, turns out to be particularly useful in order to solv e the Wess-Zumino consistency condition. The examples of the topologic al theories and of the B-C string ghost system are considered in detai l. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.