The conformal anomaly for 4D gravity-matter theories, which are non-minimal
ly coupled with the dilaton, is systematically studied. Special care is tak
en of rescaling of fields, treatment of total derivatives, hermiticity of t
he system operator and the choice of measure. Scalar, spinor and vector fie
lds are taken as the matter quantum fields and their explicit conformal ano
malies in the gravity-dilaton background are found. The cohomology analysis
is carried out and some new conformal invariants and trivial terms, involv
ing the dilaton, are obtained. The symmetry of the constant shift of the di
laton field plays an important role. The general structure of the conformal
anomaly is examined. it is shown that the dilaton affects the conformal an
omaly characteristically for each case: (1) [Scalar] The dilaton changes th
e conformal anomaly only by a new conformal invariant, I-4; (2) [Spinor] Th
e dilaton does not change the conformal anomaly; (3) [Vector] The dilaton c
hanges the conformal anomaly by three new (generalized) conformal invariant
s, I-4, I-2, I-1. We present some new anomaly formulae which are useful for
practical calculations. Finally, the anomaly induced action is calculated
for the dilatonic Wess-Zumino model. We point out that the coefficient of t
he total derivative term in the conformal anomaly for the 2D scalar coupled
to a dilaton is ambiguous. This resolves the disagreement between earlier
calculations and the result of Hawking and Bousso. (C) 1999 Elsevier Scienc
e B.V.