  The Lagrangian field-antifield formalism of Batalin and Vilkovisky (BV) is
used to investigate the application of the collective coordinate method to
soliton quantisation. It is shown how Noether identities and local symmetries
of the Lagrangian arise when collective coordinates are introduced in order to
avoid divergences related to zero modes. This transformation to collective and
fluctuation degrees of freedom is interpreted as a canonical transformation in
the symplectic field-antifield space which induces a time-local gauge symmetry.
Separating the corresponding Lagrangian path integral of the BV scheme in
lowest order into harmonic quantum fluctuations and a free motion of the
collective coordinate with the classical mass of the soliton, we show how the
BV approach clarifies the relation between zero modes, collective coordinates,
gauge invariance and the center-of-mass motion of classical solutions in
quantum fields. Finally, we apply the procedure to the reduced nonlinear O(3)
sigma-model.
