ALGEBRAIC CHARACTERIZATION OF VECTOR SUPERSYMMETRY IN TOPOLOGICAL FIELD-THEORIES

A cohomological characterization of a class of linearly broken Ward id entities is provided. The examples of the topological vector supersymm etry and of the Landau ghost equation are discussed. The existence of these linearly broken Ward identities lies in the BRST exactness of su itable antifield dependent cocycles with negative ghost number. This a lgebraic set up turns out to be related to the cohomological reformula tion of the Noether theorem given by G. Barnich, F. Brandt, and M. Hen neaux, Commun. Math. Phys. 174, 57, 93 (1995); M. Henneaux, J. Pure Ap pl. Algebra 100, 3 (1995). (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [S0 022-2488(98)01501-1].