Removal of chiral anomalies in abelian gauge theories

It is shown that chiral anomalies can be removed in abelian gauge theories. After a discussion of the two dimensional case where exact solutions are available we study the four dimensional theory. We use perturbation theory, i.e. analyse the triangle Feynman integrals, and determine the general subtraction structure of the gauge current. Then we show that gauges exist for which current conservation holds and the theory is gauge invariant. As far as the generating functional is concerned the anomaly is employed first as gauge fixing condition. After rewriting the interaction in a gauge invariant form the gauge fixing condition can be imposed as usual. In our approach the integration over the gauge group remains trivial. (author)