Chiral anomalies in even and odd dimensions

Odd dimensional Yang-Mills theories with an extra ''topological mass'' term, defined by the Chern-Simons secondary characteristic, are discussed. It is shown in detail how the topological mass affects the equal time charge commutation relations and how the modified commutation relations are related to non-abelian chiral anomalies in even dimensions. We also study the SU(3) chiral model (Wess-Zumino model) in four dimensions and we show how a gauge invariant interaction with an external SU(3) vector potential can be defined with the help of the Chern-Simons characteristic in five dimensions. (orig.)