  The heat kernel for the spin-3/2 Rarita-Schwinger gauge field on an arbitrary
Ricci flat space-time ($d>2$) is investigated in a family of covariant gauges
with one gauge parameter $\alpha$. The $\alpha$-dependent term of the kernel is
expressed by the spin-1/2 heat kernel. It is shown that the axial anomaly and
the one-loop divegence of the action are $\alpha$-independent, and that the
conformal anomaly has an $\alpha$-dependent total derivative term in
$d=2m\geq6$ dimensions.
