BRST cohomology and Hilbert spaces of non-Abelian models in the decoupled path integral formulation

The existence of several nilpotent Noether charges in the decoupled formulation of two-dimensional gauge theories does not imply that all of these are required to annihilate the physical states. We elucidate this matter in the context of simple quantum mechanical and field theoretical models, where the structure of the Hilbert space is known. We provide a systematic procedure for deciding which of the BRST conditions is to be imposed on the physical states in order to ensure the equivalence of the decoupled formulation to the original, coupled one. copyright 1997 Academic Press, Inc