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Gauge theory



 
 
In physics, gauge theory is a quantum field theory
Quantum field theory

Quantum field theory or QFT provides a theoretical framework for constructing quantum mechanics models of systems classically described by field or of Many-body problem....
 where the Lagrangian
Lagrangian

The Lagrangian, , of a dynamical system is a function that summarizes the dynamics of the system. It is named after Joseph Louis Lagrange. The concept of a Lagrangian was originally introduced in a reformulation of classical mechanics known as Lagrangian mechanics....
 is invariant under certain transformations.

The transformations (called local gauge transformations) form a Lie group
Lie group

In mathematics, a Lie group is a group which is also a differentiable manifold, with the property that the group operations are compatible with the Differential structure....
 which is referred to as the symmetry group or the gauge group of the theory. For each group parameter there is a corresponding vector field called gauge field which helps to make the Lagrangian gauge invariant.






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In physics, gauge theory is a quantum field theory
Quantum field theory

Quantum field theory or QFT provides a theoretical framework for constructing quantum mechanics models of systems classically described by field or of Many-body problem....
 where the Lagrangian
Lagrangian

The Lagrangian, , of a dynamical system is a function that summarizes the dynamics of the system. It is named after Joseph Louis Lagrange. The concept of a Lagrangian was originally introduced in a reformulation of classical mechanics known as Lagrangian mechanics....
 is invariant under certain transformations.

The transformations (called local gauge transformations) form a Lie group
Lie group

In mathematics, a Lie group is a group which is also a differentiable manifold, with the property that the group operations are compatible with the Differential structure....
 which is referred to as the symmetry group or the gauge group of the theory. For each group parameter there is a corresponding vector field called gauge field which helps to make the Lagrangian gauge invariant. The quanta
Quantum

In physics, a quantum is an indivisible entity of a quantity that has the same units as the Planck constant and is related to both energy and momentum of elementary particles of matter and of photons and other bosons....
 of the gauge field are called gauge bosons.

If the symmetry group is non-commutative, the gauge theory is referred to as non-abelian
Non-abelian

In theoretical physics, a non-abelian gauge transformation means a gauge transformation taking values in some group G, the elements of which do not obey the commutative law when they are multiplied....
 or Yang-Mills theory.

Quantum electrodynamics
QED

QED may refer to:* Quantum electrodynamics, a field of physics* QED , Richard Feynman's book about quantum electrodynamics* Q.E.D. "Quod erat demonstrandum", a Latin phrase used at the end of a definitive proof....
 is an abelian
Abelian group

An abelian group, also called a commutative group, is a group satisfying the requirement that the product of elements does not depend on their order ....
 gauge theory with the symmetry group U(1)
Unitary group

In mathematics, the unitary group of degree n, denoted U, is the group of n×n unitary matrix, with the group operation that of matrix multiplication....
 and one gauge field, the electromagnetic field, with the photon
Photon

In physics, the photon is an elementary particle, the quantum of the electromagnetic field and the basic unit of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation....
 being the gauge boson.

The standard model
Standard Model

The Standard Model of particle physics is a theory of three of the four known fundamental interactions and the elementary particles that take part in these interactions....
 is a non-abelian gauge theory with the symmetry group U(1)×SU(2)
Special unitary group

In mathematics, the special unitary group of degree n, denoted SU, is the group of n×n unitary matrix Matrix with determinant 1....
×SU(3) and twelve gauge bosons: the photon, three weak bosons and ; and eight gluons.

Description


Global and local symmetries

In physics
Physics

Physics is the natural science which examines basic concepts such as energy, force, and spacetime and all that derives from these, such as mass, charge, matter and its Motion ....
, the mathematical description of any physical situation usually contains excess degrees of freedom; the same physical situation is equally well described by many equivalent mathematical configurations. For instance, in Newtonian dynamics, if two configurations are related by a Galilean transformation
Galilean transformation

The Galilean transformation is used to transform between the coordinates of two reference frames which differ only by constant relative motion within the constructs of Newtonian physics....
—an inertial change of reference frame—they represent the same physical situation. These transformations form a group
Group (mathematics)

In mathematics, a group is an algebraic structure consisting of a set together with an Binary operation that combines any two of its element to form a third element....
 of "symmetries
Symmetry in physics

Symmetry in physics includes all features of a physical system that exhibit the property of symmetry?that is, under certain transformation , aspects of these systems are "unchanged", according to a particular observation....
" of the theory, and a physical situation corresponds not to an individual mathematical configuration but to a class of configurations related to one another by this symmetry group. This idea can be generalized to include local as well as global symmetries, analogous to much more abstract "changes of coordinates" in a situation where there is no preferred "inertial" coordinate system that covers the entire physical system. A gauge theory is a mathematical model that has symmetries of this kind, together with a set of techniques for making physical predictions consistent with the symmetries of the model.

Example of global symmetry

When a quantity occurring in the mathematical configuration is not just a number but has some geometrical significance, such as a velocity or an axis of rotation, its representation as numbers arranged in a vector or matrix is also changed by a coordinate transformation. For instance, if one description of a pattern of fluid flow states that the fluid velocity in the neighborhood of (x=1, y=0) is 1 m/s in the positive x direction, then a description of the same situation in which the coordinate system has been rotated clockwise by 90 degrees will state that the fluid velocity in the neighborhood of (x=0, y=1) is 1 m/s in the positive y direction. The coordinate transformation has affected both the coordinate system used to identify the location of the measurement and the basis in which its value is expressed. As long as this transformation is performed globally (affecting the coordinate basis in the same way at every point), the effect on values that represent the rate of change of some quantity along some path in space and time as it passes through point P is the same as the effect on values that are truly local to P.

Use of fiber bundles to describe local symmetries

In order to adequately describe physical situations in more complex theories, it is often necessary to introduce a "coordinate basis" for some of the objects of the theory that do not have this simple relationship to the coordinates used to label points in space and time. (In mathematical terms, the theory involves a fiber bundle
Fiber bundle

File:Roundhairbrush.JPGIn mathematics, and particularly topology, a fiber bundle is intuitively a space E which locally "looks" like a product space B ? F, but globally may have a different topological structure....
 in which the fiber at each point of the base space consists of possible coordinate bases for use when describing the values of objects at that point.) In order to spell out a mathematical configuration, one must choose a particular coordinate basis at each point (a local section of the fiber bundle) and express the values of the objects of the theory (usually "fields
Field theory (physics)

There are two types of field theory in physics:*Classical field theory, the theory and dynamics of classical fields.*Quantum field theory, the theory of Quantum mechanics fields....
" in the physicist's sense) using this basis. Two such mathematical configurations are equivalent (describe the same physical situation) if they are related by a transformation of this abstract coordinate basis (a change of local section, or gauge transformation).

In most gauge theories, the set of possible transformations of the abstract gauge basis at an individual point in space and time is a finite-dimensional Lie group
Lie group

In mathematics, a Lie group is a group which is also a differentiable manifold, with the property that the group operations are compatible with the Differential structure....
. The simplest such group is U(1), which appears in the modern formulation of quantum electrodynamics (QED)
Quantum electrodynamics

Quantum electrodynamics is a relativity theory quantum field theory of electrodynamics. QED was developed by a number of physicists, beginning in the late 1920s....
 via its use of complex number
Complex number

In mathematics, the complex numbers are an extension of the real numbers obtained by adjoining an imaginary unit, denoted i, which satisfies:...
s. QED is generally regarded as the first, and simplest, physical gauge theory. The set of possible gauge transformations of the entire configuration of a given gauge theory also forms a group, the gauge group of the theory. An element of the gauge group can be parameterized by a smoothly varying function from the points of spacetime to the (finite-dimensional) Lie group, whose value at each point represents the action of the gauge transformation on the fiber over that point.

A gauge transformation with constant parameter at every point in space and time is analogous to a rigid rotation of the geometric coordinate system; it represents a global symmetry
Global symmetry

A global symmetry is a symmetry in physics#Local and global symmetries that holds for all points in the spacetime under consideration, as opposed to a local symmetry that only holds for an open subset of points....
 of the gauge representation. As in the case of a rigid rotation, this gauge transformation affects expressions that represent the rate of change along a path of some gauge-dependent quantity in the same way as those that represent a truly local quantity. A gauge transformation whose parameter is not a constant function is referred to as a local symmetry; its effect on expressions that involve a derivative
Derivative

In calculus, a branch of mathematics, the derivative is a measure of how a function changes as its input changes. Loosely speaking, a derivative can be thought of as how much a quantity is changing at a given point....
 is qualitatively different from that on expressions that don't. (This is analogous to a non-inertial change of reference frame, which can produce a Coriolis effect
Coriolis effect

In physics, the Coriolis effect is an apparent deflection of moving objects when they are viewed from a rotating reference frame.Newton's laws of motion govern the motion of an object in an inertial frame of reference....
.)

Gauge fields

The "gauge covariant" version of a gauge theory accounts for this effect by introducing a gauge field (in mathematical language, an Ehresmann connection
Ehresmann connection

In differential geometry, an Ehresmann connection is a version of the notion of a connection which is defined on arbitrary fibre bundles. In particular, it may be nonlinear, since a general fibre bundle lacks a suitable notion of linearity....
) and formulating all rates of change in terms of the covariant derivative
Covariant derivative

In mathematics, the covariant derivative is a way of specifying a derivative along tangent vectors of a manifold. Alternatively, the covariant derivative is a way of introducing and working with a connection on a manifold by means of a differential operator, to be contrasted with the approach given by a connection on the frame bundle &mdas...
 with respect to this connection. The gauge field becomes an essential part of the description of a mathematical configuration. A configuration in which the gauge field can be eliminated by a gauge transformation has the property that its field strength
Field strength

In physics, the field strength of a field is the magnitude of its vector value.In theoretical physics, field strength is another name for the curvature form....
 (in mathematical language, its curvature
Curvature

In mathematics, curvature refers to any of a number of loosely related concepts in different areas of geometry. Intuitively, curvature is the amount by which a geometric object deviates from being flat, or straight in the case of a line , but this is defined in different ways depending on the context....
) is zero everywhere; a gauge theory is not limited to these configurations. In other words, the distinguishing characteristic of a gauge theory is that the gauge field does not merely compensate for a poor choice of coordinate system; there is generally no gauge transformation that makes the gauge field vanish.

When analyzing the dynamics
Dynamics

Dynamics may refer to:In Physics:*Dynamics , in physics, dynamics refers to time evolution of physical processes*Analytical dynamics refers to the motion of bodies as induced by external forces...
 of a gauge theory, the gauge field must be treated as a dynamical variable, similarly to other objects in the description of a physical situation. In addition to its interaction
Fundamental interaction

In physics, a fundamental interaction or fundamental force is a process by which elementary particles interact with each other. An interaction is often described as a field , and is mediated by the exchange of gauge bosons between particles....
 with other objects via the covariant derivative, the gauge field typically contributes energy
Energy

In physics, energy is a scalar physical quantity that describes the amount of Work_ that can be performed by a force. Energy is an attribute of objects and systems that is subject to a conservation law....
 in the form of a "self-energy" term. One can obtain the equations for the gauge theory by:
  • starting from a naïve ansatz
    Ansatz

    Ansatz is a German noun with several meanings in the English language. The fact that the word Ansatz is found in the English language today suggests that it has been carried by those who have used it frequently,, such as mathematicians and physicists....
     without the gauge field (in which the derivatives appear in a "bare" form);
  • listing those global symmetries of the theory that can be characterized by a continuous parameter (generally an abstract equivalent of a rotation angle);
  • computing the correction terms that result from allowing the symmetry parameter to vary from place to place; and
  • reinterpreting these correction terms as couplings to one or more gauge fields, and giving these fields appropriate self-energy terms and dynamical behavior.
This is the sense in which a gauge theory "extends" a global symmetry to a local symmetry, and closely resembles the historical development of the gauge theory of gravity known as general relativity
General relativity

General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the Geometry Theoretical physics of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916....
.

Physical experiments

Gauge theories are used to model the results of physical experiments, essentially by:
  • limiting the universe of possible configurations to those consistent with the information used to set up the experiment, and then
  • computing the probability distribution of the possible outcomes that the experiment is designed to measure.
The mathematical descriptions of the "setup information" and the "possible measurement outcomes" (loosely speaking, the "boundary conditions" of the experiment) are generally not expressible without reference to a particular coordinate system, including a choice of gauge. (If nothing else, one assumes that the experiment has been adequately isolated from "external" influence, which is itself a gauge-dependent statement.) Mishandling gauge dependence in boundary conditions is a frequent source of anomalies
Anomaly (physics)

In quantum physics an anomaly or quantum anomaly is the failure of a symmetry of a theory's classical action to be a symmetry of any regularization of the full quantum theory....
 in gauge theory calculations, and gauge theories can be broadly classified by their approaches to anomaly avoidance.

Continuum theories

The two gauge theories mentioned above (continuum electrodynamics and general relativity) are examples of continuum field theories. The techniques of calculation in a continuum theory implicitly assume that:
  • given a completely fixed choice of gauge, the boundary conditions of an individual configuration can in principle be completely described;
  • given a completely fixed gauge and a complete set of boundary conditions, the principle of least action determines a unique mathematical configuration (and therefore a unique physical situation) consistent with these bounds;
  • the likelihood of possible measurement outcomes can be determined by:
    • establishing a probability distribution over all physical situations determined by boundary conditions that are consistent with the setup information,
    • establishing a probability distribution of measurement outcomes for each possible physical situation, and
    • convolving these two probability distributions to get a distribution of possible measurement outcomes consistent with the setup information; and
  • fixing the gauge introduces no anomalies in the calculation, due either to gauge dependence in describing partial information about boundary conditions or to incompleteness of the theory.
These assumptions are close enough to valid, across a wide range of energy scales and experimental conditions, to allow these theories to make accurate predictions about almost all of the phenomena encountered in daily life, from light, heat, and electricity to eclipses and spaceflight. They fail only at the smallest and largest scales (due to omissions in the theories themselves) and when the mathematical techniques themselves break down (most notably in the case of turbulence
Turbulence

In fluid dynamics, turbulence or turbulent flow is a fluid regime characterized by chaotic, stochastic property changes. This includes low momentum diffusion, high momentum convection, and rapid variation of pressure and velocity in space and time....
 and other chaotic phenomena).

Quantum field theories

Other than these "classical" continuum field theories, the most widely known gauge theories are quantum field theories, including quantum electrodynamics
Quantum electrodynamics

Quantum electrodynamics is a relativity theory quantum field theory of electrodynamics. QED was developed by a number of physicists, beginning in the late 1920s....
 and the Standard Model
Standard Model

The Standard Model of particle physics is a theory of three of the four known fundamental interactions and the elementary particles that take part in these interactions....
 of elementary particle physics. The starting point of a quantum field theory is much like that of its continuum analog: a gauge-covariant action integral which characterizes "allowable" physical situations according to the principle of least action
Principle of least action

In physics, the principle of least action or more accurately principle of stationary action is a variational principle which, when applied to the action of a mechanics system, can be used to obtain the equations of motion for that system....
. However, continuum and quantum theories differ significantly in how they handle the excess degrees of freedom represented by gauge transformations. Continuum theories, and most pedagogical treatments of the simplest quantum field theories, use a gauge fixing
Gauge fixing

In the physics of gauge theory, gauge fixing denotes a mathematical procedure for coping with redundant Degrees of freedom in field variables....
 prescription to reduce the orbit of mathematical configurations that represent a given physical situation to a smaller orbit related by a smaller gauge group (the global symmetry group, or perhaps even the trivial group).

More sophisticated quantum field theories, in particular those which involve a non-abelian
Non-abelian

In theoretical physics, a non-abelian gauge transformation means a gauge transformation taking values in some group G, the elements of which do not obey the commutative law when they are multiplied....
 gauge group, break the gauge symmetry within the techniques of perturbation theory
Perturbation theory (quantum mechanics)

In quantum mechanics, perturbation theory is a set of approximation schemes directly related to mathematical perturbation theory for describing a complicated quantum system in terms of a simpler one....
 by introducing additional fields (the Faddeev-Popov ghosts) and counterterms motivated by anomaly cancellation, in an approach known as BRST quantization
BRST Quantization

In theoretical physics, BRST quantization is a relatively rigorous mathematical approach to Quantization a Field theory with a gauge symmetry....
. While these concerns are in one sense highly technical, they are also closely related to the nature of measurement, the limits on knowledge of a physical situation, and the interactions between incompletely specified experimental conditions and incompletely understood physical theory. The mathematical techniques that have been developed in order to make gauge theories tractable have found many other applications, from solid-state physics
Solid-state physics

Solid-state physics, the largest branch of condensed matter physics, is the study of rigid matter, or solids, through methods such as quantum mechanics, crystallography, electromagnetism and metallurgy....
 and crystallography
Crystallography

Crystallography is the experimental science of determining the arrangement of atoms in solids. In older usage, it is the scientific study of crystals....
 to low-dimensional topology
Low-dimensional topology

In mathematics, low-dimensional topology is the branch of topology that studies manifolds of four or fewer dimensions. Representative topics are the structure theory of 3-manifolds and 4-manifolds, knot theory, and braid groups....
.

History


The earliest field theory having a gauge symmetry was Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell was a Scotland Mathematical physics. His most significant achievement was the development of the classical electromagnetic theory, synthesizing all previous unrelated observations, experiments and equations of electricity, magnetism and even optics into a consistent theory....
's formulation of electrodynamics in 1864. The importance of this symmetry remained unnoticed in the earliest formulations. Similarly unnoticed, Hilbert
David Hilbert

David Hilbert was a Germany mathematician, recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries....
 had derived the Einstein field equations
Einstein field equations

The Einstein field equations or Einstein's equations are a set of ten equations in Einstein's theory of general relativity in which the fundamental force of gravitation is described as a curved spacetime caused by matter and energy....
 by postulating the invariance of the action
Action (physics)

In modern physics, action is an attribute of the development of a physical system over a period of time, namely amount by which the Phase of the wave function has changed....
 under a general coordinate transformation. Later Hermann Weyl
Hermann Weyl

Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl was a Germany mathematician. Although much of his working life was spent in Z?rich, Switzerland and then Princeton, New Jersey, he is associated with the University of G?ttingen tradition of mathematics, represented by David Hilbert and Hermann Minkowski....
, in an attempt to unify general relativity
General relativity

General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the Geometry Theoretical physics of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916....
 and electromagnetism
Electromagnetism

Electromagnetism is the physics of the electromagnetic field, a field which exerts a force on Elementary particles with the property of electric charge and which is reciprocally affected by the presence and motion of such particles....
, conjectured (incorrectly, as it turned out) that Eichinvarianz or invariance under the change of scale (or "gauge") might also be a local symmetry of general relativity. After the development of quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics is a set of principles underlying the most fundamental known description of all physical systems at the microscopic scale . Notable amongst these principles are both a dual wave-like and particle-like behavior of matter and radiation, and prediction of probabilities in situations where classical physics predicts certaintie...
, Weyl, Vladimir Fock
Vladimir Fock

Vladimir Aleksandrovich Fock was a Soviet Union physicist, who did foundational work on quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics.He was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia....
 and Fritz London
Fritz London

Fritz Wolfgang London was a Germany-born United States theoretical physicist. His fundamental contributions to the theories of chemical bonding and of intermolecular forces are today considered classic and are discussed in standard textbooks of physical chemistry....
 modified gauge by replacing the scale factor with a complex
Complex number

In mathematics, the complex numbers are an extension of the real numbers obtained by adjoining an imaginary unit, denoted i, which satisfies:...
 quantity and turned the scale transformation into a change of phase
Phase (waves)

The phase of an oscillation or wave is the fraction of a complete cycle corresponding to an offset in the displacement from a specified reference point at time t = 0....
—a U(1) gauge symmetry). This explained the electromagnetic field
Electromagnetic field

The electromagnetic field is a physical field produced by electric charge. It affects the behavior of charged objects in the vicinity of the field....
 effect on the wave function of a charge
Electric charge

Electric charge is a fundamental conserved property of some subatomic particles, which determines their electromagnetic interaction. Electrically charged matter is influenced by, and produces, electromagnetic fields....
d quantum mechanical particle
Elementary particle

In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a wiktionary:particle not known to have substructure; that is, it is not known to be made up of smaller particles....
. This was the first widely recognised gauge theory. It was popularised by Pauli in the 1940s, e.g. .

In 1954, attempting to resolve some of the great confusion in elementary particle physics, Chen Ning Yang
Chen Ning Yang

Chen-Ning Franklin Yang is a China-born United States physicist who worked on statistical mechanics and particle physics. He, together with Tsung-Dao Lee, received the 1957 Nobel prize in physics for their work on parity nonconservation of weak interaction....
 and Robert Mills
Robert Mills (physicist)

Robert L. Mills was a physicist, specializing in quantum field theory, the theory of alloys, and many-body theory. While sharing an office at Brookhaven National Laboratory, in 1954, Chen Ning Yang and Mills proposed a tensor equation for what are now called Yang-Mills fields....
 introduced non-abelian gauge theories as models to understand the strong interaction
Strong interaction

In particle physics, the strong interaction, or strong force, or color force, holds quarks and gluons together to form protons, neutrons and other particles....
 holding together nucleon
Nucleon

In physics, a nucleon is a collective name for two baryons: the neutron and the proton. They are constituents of the atomic nucleus and until the 1960s were thought to be elementary particles....
s in atomic nuclei
Atomic nucleus

The nucleus of an atom is the very dense region, consisting of nucleons , at the center of an atom. Although the size of the nucleus varies considerably according to the mass of the atom, the size of the entire atom is comparatively constant....
. (Ronald Shaw, working under Abdus Salam
Abdus Salam

Abdus Salam was a Demographics of Pakistan theoretical physicist, Astrophysicist and Nobel laureate in Physics for his work in electroweak theory....
, independently introduced the same notion in his doctoral thesis.) Generalizing the gauge invariance of electromagnetism, they attempted to construct a theory based on the action of the (non-abelian) SU(2) symmetry group
Group (mathematics)

In mathematics, a group is an algebraic structure consisting of a set together with an Binary operation that combines any two of its element to form a third element....
 on the isospin
Isospin

In physics, and specifically, particle physics, isospin is a quantum number related to the strong interaction. This term was derived from isotopic spin, but the term is confusing as two isotopes of a nucleus have different numbers of nucleons; in contrast, rotations of isospin maintain the number of nucleons....
 doublet of proton
Proton

The proton is a subatomic particle with an electric charge of +1 elementary charge. It is found in the nucleus of each atom but is also stable by itself and has a second identity as the hydrogen ion, H+....
s and neutron
Neutron

The neutron is a subatomic particle with no net electric charge and a mass slightly larger than that of a proton.Neutrons are usually found in atomic nucleus....
s. This is similar to the action of the U(1) group on the spinor
Spinor

In mathematics and physics, in particular in the theory of the orthogonal groups , spinors are elements of a complex vector space introduced to expand the notion of spatial vector and tensor....
 field
Field (physics)

In physics, a field is a physical quantity associated to each point of spacetime. A field can be classified as a scalar field, a vector field, or a tensor field, according to whether the value of the field at each point is a scalar , a vector , or, more generally, a tensor, respectively....
s of quantum electrodynamics
Quantum electrodynamics

Quantum electrodynamics is a relativity theory quantum field theory of electrodynamics. QED was developed by a number of physicists, beginning in the late 1920s....
. In particle physics the emphasis was on using quantized gauge theories.

This idea later found application in the quantum field theory
Quantum field theory

Quantum field theory or QFT provides a theoretical framework for constructing quantum mechanics models of systems classically described by field or of Many-body problem....
 of the weak force, and its unification with electromagnetism in the electroweak theory. Gauge theories became even more attractive when it was realized that non-abelian gauge theories reproduced a feature called asymptotic freedom
Asymptotic freedom

In physics, asymptotic freedom is the property of some gauge theory in which the interaction between the particles, such as quarks, becomes arbitrarily weak at ever shorter distances, i.e....
. Asymptotic freedom was believed to be an important characteristic of strong interactions. This motivated searching for a strong force gauge theory. This theory, now known as quantum chromodynamics
Quantum chromodynamics

Quantum chromodynamics is a theory of the strong interaction , a fundamental force describing the interactions of the quarks and gluons making up hadrons ....
, is a gauge theory with the action of the SU(3) group on the color
Color charge

In particle physics, color charge is a property of quarks and gluons which are related to their strong interactions in the context of quantum chromodynamics ....
 triplet of quarks. The Standard Model
Standard Model

The Standard Model of particle physics is a theory of three of the four known fundamental interactions and the elementary particles that take part in these interactions....
 unifies the description of electromagnetism, weak interactions and strong interactions in the language of gauge theory.

In the 1970s, Sir Michael Atiyah
Michael Atiyah

Sir Michael Francis Atiyah, Order of Merit , Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh is a United Kingdom mathematician, and one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century....
 began studying the mathematics of solutions to the classical Yang-Mills equations. In 1983, Atiyah's student Simon Donaldson
Simon Donaldson

Simon Kirwan Donaldson Fellow of the Royal Society , is an England mathematician famous for his work on the topology of smooth four-dimensional manifolds....
 built on this work to show that the differentiable classification of smooth
Smooth function

In mathematical analysis, a differentiability class is a classification of function according to the properties of their derivatives. Higher order differentiability classes correspond to the existence of more derivatives....
 4-manifold
Manifold

In mathematics, more specifically topology, a manifold is a topological space in which every point has a neighborhood which "resembles" Euclidean space....
s is very different from their classification up to
Up to

In mathematics, the phrase "up to xxxx" indicates that members of an equivalence class are to be regarded as a single entity for some purpose. "xxxx" describes a property or process which transforms an element into one from the same equivalence class, i.e....
 homeomorphism
Homeomorphism

In the mathematics field of topology, a homeomorphism or topological isomorphism is a continuous function between two topological spaces....
. Michael Freedman
Michael Freedman

Michael Hartley Freedman is a mathematician at Microsoft Station Q. In 1986, he was awarded a Fields Medal for his work on the Poincar? conjecture....
 used Donaldson's work to exhibit exotic R4
Exotic R4

In mathematics, an exotic R4 is a differentiable manifold that is homeomorphic to the Euclidean space R4, but not diffeomorphism....
s, that is, exotic differentiable structures on Euclidean
Euclidean

List of topics named after Euclid *Euclidean space*Euclidean geometry*Euclid's Elements*Euclidean domain*Euclidean distance*Euclidean ball*Euclidean algorithm...
 4-dimensional space. This led to an increasing interest in gauge theory for its own sake, independent of its successes in fundamental physics. In 1994, Edward Witten
Edward Witten

Edward Witten is an United States theoretical physicist and professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. He is one of the world's leading researchers in superstring theory....
 and Nathan Seiberg
Nathan Seiberg

Nathan "Nati" Seiberg, born in 1956, is an Israel American theoretical physicist who works on string theory. He is currently a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, USA....
 invented gauge-theoretic techniques based on supersymmetry
Supersymmetry

In particle physics, supersymmetry is a symmetry that relates elementary particles of one Spin to another particle that differs by half a unit of spin and are known as superpartners....
 which enabled the calculation of certain topological
Topology

Topology is a major area of mathematics that has emerged through the development of concepts from geometry and set theory, such as those of space, dimension, shape, transformation and others....
 invariants. These contributions to mathematics from gauge theory have led to a renewed interest in this area.

An extensive historical discussion can be found in Woit.

Explanation


Many powerful theories in physics are described by Lagrangian
Lagrangian

The Lagrangian, , of a dynamical system is a function that summarizes the dynamics of the system. It is named after Joseph Louis Lagrange. The concept of a Lagrangian was originally introduced in a reformulation of classical mechanics known as Lagrangian mechanics....
s which are invariant
Invariant (physics)

In mathematics and theoretical physics, an invariant is a property of a system which remains unchanged under some Transformation .The gravitational field of the Sun is invariant under a change of time ....
 under certain symmetry transformation groups. When they are invariant under a transformation identically performed at every point
Point (geometry)

In geometry, topology and related branches of mathematics a spatial point describes a specific object within a given space that consists of neither volume, area, length, nor any other higher dimensional analogue....
 in the space in which the physical processes occur, they are said to have a global symmetry
Global symmetry

A global symmetry is a symmetry in physics#Local and global symmetries that holds for all points in the spacetime under consideration, as opposed to a local symmetry that only holds for an open subset of points....
. The requirement of local symmetry is much more strict than the requirement of global symmetry. In fact, a global symmetry is just a local symmetry whose group's parameters are fixed in space-time. This can be viewed as a generalization of the equivalence principle
Equivalence principle

The equivalence principle is one of the fundamental background concepts of the General Theory of Relativity. For the overall context, see General relativity....
 of general relativity
General relativity

General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the Geometry Theoretical physics of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916....
 in which each point in spacetime is allowed a choice of local reference (coordinate) frame. As in that situation, gauge "symmetries" reflect a redundancy in the description of a system. Historically, these ideas were first noticed in the context of classical electromagnetism and later in general relativity. However, the modern importance of gauge symmetries appeared in relativistic quantum mechanics of electrons (see discussions below). Today, gauge theories are useful in condensed matter, nuclear and high energy physics among other subfields.

Sometimes, the term 'gauge symmetry' is used in a more general sense to include any local symmetry, like for example, diffeomorphism
Diffeomorphism

In mathematics, a diffeomorphism is an isomorphism of smooth manifolds. It is an invertible function that map s one differentiable manifold to another, such that both the function and its inverse are smooth function....
s. This sense of the term will not be used in this article.

Yang-Mills theories are a particular example of gauge theories with non-abelian symmetry group
Symmetry group

The symmetry group of an object is the group of all isometries under which it is invariant with Function composition as the operation. It is a subgroup of the isometry group of the space concerned....
s specified by the Yang-Mills action
Action (physics)

In modern physics, action is an attribute of the development of a physical system over a period of time, namely amount by which the Phase of the wave function has changed....
 (Other gauge theories with a non-abelian gauge symmetry also exist, e.g., the Chern-Simons model).

There is a certain inaccuracy in the way the term symmetry is used in some physics literature, especially in more elementary books about elementary particles and field theory. In (quantum) physics, symmetry is a transformation between physical states that preserves the expectation values of all observables O (in particular the Hamiltonian). S: |f> ? |?> = S|f>; ||2=||2. The usual formulation of physics theories uses fields, which sometimes are not physical quantities. Such are the gauge fields (fiber bundle connections for the mathematicians), which provide a redundant but convenient description of the physical degrees of freedom. The gauge (local) "symmetries" are a reflection of this redundancy. The physical quantities are certain equivalence classes of gauge fields. An analogy can be made with the construction of the real numbers. We can use sequences of rational numbers that have the same limit. Of course, each real number is represented by infinitely many such sequences. We can choose a particular well-defined sequence to represent the real number. This corresponds to the procedure of 'gauge fixing' in gauge theories. The fact that gauge fields are not physical degrees of freedom becomes very clear when we try to quantize them. Then we are forced to work in one way or another with the physical quantities by removing the redundancy (the gauge symmetry). Another important illustration of the problem with the gauge “symmetries” is when we have anomalies. By definition these are symmetries which exist in the classical system, but not in its quantum counterpart. Anomalies are quite usual and also an experimental fact — for example, the axial anomaly in the strong interactions (broken symmetries). However, because gauge symmetries are not symmetries, gauge anomalies are not something that just complicates a proposed quantum theory but something that kills it, i.e. there are no gauge "anomalies", because such theories don't exist. This is why having the exact relation between the number of flavours and quark colours in the Standard model is so important — otherwise there is a gauge anomaly and the theory does not exist. For the same reason, string theories are defined in 10 dimensions. Only then do the anomalies cancel.

Importance


The importance of gauge theories for physics stems from the tremendous success of the mathematical formalism in providing a unified framework to describe the quantum field theories
Quantum field theory

Quantum field theory or QFT provides a theoretical framework for constructing quantum mechanics models of systems classically described by field or of Many-body problem....
 of electromagnetism
Electromagnetism

Electromagnetism is the physics of the electromagnetic field, a field which exerts a force on Elementary particles with the property of electric charge and which is reciprocally affected by the presence and motion of such particles....
, the weak force and the strong force. This theory, known as the Standard Model
Standard Model

The Standard Model of particle physics is a theory of three of the four known fundamental interactions and the elementary particles that take part in these interactions....
, accurately describes experimental predictions regarding three of the four fundamental forces of nature, and is a gauge theory with the gauge group SU(3) × SU(2) × U(1). Modern theories like string theory
String theory

String theory is a developing branch of theoretical physics that combines quantum mechanics and general relativity into a quantum gravity. The String s of string theory are one-dimensional oscillating lines, but they are no longer considered fundamental to the theory, which can be formulated in terms of points or surfaces too....
, as well as some formulations of general relativity
General relativity

General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the Geometry Theoretical physics of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916....
, are, in one way or another, gauge theories.

A simple gauge symmetry example from electrodynamics


The definition of electrical ground in an electric circuit is an example of a gauge symmetry
Gauge symmetry

In gauge symmetry, 'gauge' means 'measure', and symmetry means 'stays the same'. Geometry is the study of the properties of objects that do not change when they move around....
. When the electric potential
Electric potential

At a point in space, the electric potential is the potential energy per unit of electric charge that is associated with a static electric field....
s at all points in a circuit are raised by the same amount, the circuit will still operate identically, as the potential differences (voltage
Voltage

Electrical tension is the potential difference between two points of an electrical or electronic circuit, expressed in volts. It is the measurement of the potential for an electric field to cause an electric current in an electrical conductor....
s) in the circuit are unchanged. A common illustration of this fact is the sight of a small bird perched on a high voltage power line without electrocution, because the bird is insulated from the ground (as long as it doesn't complete the circuit by accidentally touching another wire or some grounded structure).

This is called a global gauge symmetry
Gauge symmetry

In gauge symmetry, 'gauge' means 'measure', and symmetry means 'stays the same'. Geometry is the study of the properties of objects that do not change when they move around....
. The absolute value of the potential is immaterial; what matters to circuit operation is the potential differences across the components of the circuit. The definition of the ground point is arbitrary, but once that point is set, then that definition must be followed globally.

In contrast, if some symmetry could be defined arbitrarily from one position to the next, that would be a local gauge symmetry. In fact, the example above (of electromagnetism) is actually a local gauge symmetry where the particular transformation of the potential of the electric field is just the constant one (a global symmetry is a local one but not vice versa); there are an infinite number of transformations of the electromagnetic field's potential A that are not constant but can be made consistent as explained below. (Although the number of transformations is infinite, the number of classes of transformation is finite--just 1 class, the addition of the gradient of a scalar function.)

Classical gauge theory

This section requires some familiarity with classical or quantum field theory
Quantum field theory

Quantum field theory or QFT provides a theoretical framework for constructing quantum mechanics models of systems classically described by field or of Many-body problem....
, and the use of Lagrangian
Lagrangian

The Lagrangian, , of a dynamical system is a function that summarizes the dynamics of the system. It is named after Joseph Louis Lagrange. The concept of a Lagrangian was originally introduced in a reformulation of classical mechanics known as Lagrangian mechanics....
s.


Definitions in this section: gauge group, gauge field, interaction Lagrangian, gauge boson
Gauge boson

In particle physics, gauge bosons are bosonic particles that act as carriers of the fundamental interactions of nature. More specifically, elementary particles whose interactions are described by gauge theory exert forces on each other by the exchange of gauge bosons, usually as virtual particles....


An example: Scalar O(n) gauge theory


The following illustrates how local gauge invariance can be "motivated" heuristically starting from global symmetry properties, and how it leads to an interaction between fields which were originally non-interacting.

Consider a set of n non-interacting scalar field
Field (physics)

In physics, a field is a physical quantity associated to each point of spacetime. A field can be classified as a scalar field, a vector field, or a tensor field, according to whether the value of the field at each point is a scalar , a vector , or, more generally, a tensor, respectively....
s, with equal masses m. This system is described by an action
Action (physics)

In modern physics, action is an attribute of the development of a physical system over a period of time, namely amount by which the Phase of the wave function has changed....
 which is the sum of the (usual) action for each scalar field fi

The Lagrangian (density) can be compactly written as

by introducing a vector of fields

The term is Einstein notation
Einstein notation

In mathematics, especially in applications of linear algebra to physics, the Einstein notation or Einstein summation convention is a notational convention useful when dealing with coordinate formulas....
 for the partial derivative
Partial derivative

In mathematics, a partial derivative of a function of several variables is its derivative with respect to one of those variables with the others held constant ....
 of in each of the four dimensions. It is now transparent that the Lagrangian is invariant under the transformation

whenever G is a constant matrix
Matrix (mathematics)

In mathematics, a matrix is a rectangular array of numbers, as shown at the right. In addition to a number of elementary, entrywise operations such as matrix addition a key notion is matrix multiplication....
 belonging to the n-by-n orthogonal group
Orthogonal group

In mathematics, the orthogonal group of degree n over a field F is the group of n-by-n orthogonal matrix with entries from F, with the group operation that of matrix multiplication....
 O(n). This is the global symmetry of this particular Lagrangian, and the symmetry group is often called the gauge group; the mathematical term is structure group, especially in the theory of G-structure
G-structure

In differential geometry, a G-structure on an n-manifold M, for a given structure group G, is a G-subbundle of the frame bundle#Tangent frame bundle FM of M....
s. Incidentally, Noether's theorem
Noether's theorem

Noether's theorem states that any derivative Symmetry in physics of the action of a physical system has a corresponding conservation law. The action of a physical system is an integral of a so-called Lagrangian function, from which the system's behavior can be determined by the principle of least action....
 implies that invariance under this group of transformations leads to the conservation of the current

where the Ta matrices are generator
Generating set of a group

In abstract algebra, a generating set of a group is a subset S such that every element of G can be expressed as the product of finitely many elements of S and their inverses....
s of the SO(n) group. There is one conserved current for every generator.

Now, demanding that this Lagrangian should have local O(n)-invariance requires that the G matrices (which were earlier constant) should be allowed to become functions of the space-time coordinates x.

Unfortunately, the G matrices do not "pass through" the derivatives. When G = G(x),

This suggests defining a "derivative
Derivative

In calculus, a branch of mathematics, the derivative is a measure of how a function changes as its input changes. Loosely speaking, a derivative can be thought of as how much a quantity is changing at a given point....
" D with the property

It can be checked that such a "derivative" (called a covariant derivative
Covariant derivative

In mathematics, the covariant derivative is a way of specifying a derivative along tangent vectors of a manifold. Alternatively, the covariant derivative is a way of introducing and working with a connection on a manifold by means of a differential operator, to be contrasted with the approach given by a connection on the frame bundle &mdas...
) is

where the gauge field A(x) is defined to have the transformation law

and g is the coupling constant - a quantity defining the strength of an interaction.

The gauge field is an element of the Lie algebra, and can therefore be expanded as

There are therefore as many gauge fields as there are generators of the Lie algebra.

Finally, we now have a locally gauge invariant Lagrangian

Pauli calls gauge transformation of the first type to the one applied to fields as , while the compensating transformation in is said to be a gauge transformation of the second type.

The difference between this Lagrangian and the original globally gauge-invariant Lagrangian is seen to be the interaction Lagrangian

This term introduces interaction
Interaction

Interaction is a kind of action that occurs as two or more objects have an effect upon one another. The idea of a two-way effect is essential in the concept of interaction, as opposed to a one-way causal effect....
s between the n scalar fields just as a consequence of the demand for local gauge invariance. In the quantized version of this classical field theory
Field theory

Field theory may refer to:*Field theory , the theory of the algebraic concept of field*Field theory , a physical theory which employs fields in the physical sense...
, the quanta
Quantum

In physics, a quantum is an indivisible entity of a quantity that has the same units as the Planck constant and is related to both energy and momentum of elementary particles of matter and of photons and other bosons....
 of the gauge field A(x) are called gauge boson
Gauge boson

In particle physics, gauge bosons are bosonic particles that act as carriers of the fundamental interactions of nature. More specifically, elementary particles whose interactions are described by gauge theory exert forces on each other by the exchange of gauge bosons, usually as virtual particles....
s. The interpretation of the interaction Lagrangian in quantum field theory is of scalar
Scalar (physics)

In physics, a scalar is a simple physical quantity that is not changed by coordinate system rotations or translations , or by Lorentz transformations or space-time translations ....
 boson
Boson

In particle physics, bosons are subatomic particle which obey Bose-Einstein statistics; they are named after Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein....
s interacting by the exchange of these gauge bosons.

The Yang-Mills Lagrangian for the gauge field

Our picture of classical gauge theory is almost complete except for the fact that to define the covariant derivatives D, one needs to know the value of the gauge field at all space-time points. Instead of manually specifying the values of this field, it can be given as the solution to a field equation. Further requiring that the Lagrangian which generates this field equation is locally gauge invariant as well, one possible form for the gauge field Lagrangian is (conventionally) written as

with

and the trace
Trace (linear algebra)

In linear algebra, the trace of an n-by-n square matrix A is defined to be the sum of the elements on the main diagonal of A, i.e.,...
 being taken over the vector space
Vector space

File:Vector addition ans scaling.pngA vector space is a mathematical structure formed by a collection of vectors: objects that may be Vector addition together and Scalar multiplication by numbers, called scalar s in this context....
 of the fields. This is called the Yang-Mills action. Other gauge invariant actions also exist (e.g. nonlinear electrodynamics, Born-Infeld action, Chern-Simons model, theta term etc.).

Note that in this Lagrangian there is not a field whose transformation counterweights the one of . Invariance of this term under gauge transformations is a particular case of a prior classical (that is geometrical) symmetry. This symmetry must be restricted in order to perform quantization, the procedure being denominated gauge fixing
Gauge fixing

In the physics of gauge theory, gauge fixing denotes a mathematical procedure for coping with redundant Degrees of freedom in field variables....
, but even after restriction, gauge transformations are possible (see Sakurai, Advanced Quantum Mechanics, sect 1-4).

The complete Lagrangian for the O(n) gauge theory is now

A simple example: Electrodynamics


As a simple application of the formalism developed in the previous sections, consider the case of electrodynamics, with only the electron
Electron

The electron is a subatomic particle that carries a negative electric charge. It has elementary particle and is believed to be a point particle....
 field. The bare-bones action which generates the electron field's Dirac equation
Dirac equation

In physics, the Dirac equation is a theory of relativity quantum mechanics wave equation formulated by British physicist Paul Dirac in 1928 and provides a description of elementary particle spin-? particles, such as electrons, consistent with both the principles of quantum mechanics and the theory of special relativity....
 is

The global symmetry for this system is

The gauge group here is U(1), just the phase angle
Complex number

In mathematics, the complex numbers are an extension of the real numbers obtained by adjoining an imaginary unit, denoted i, which satisfies:...
 of the field, with a constant ?.

"Local"ising this symmetry implies the replacement of ? by ?(x).

An appropriate covariant derivative is then

Identifying the "charge" e with the usual electric charge
Electric charge

Electric charge is a fundamental conserved property of some subatomic particles, which determines their electromagnetic interaction. Electrically charged matter is influenced by, and produces, electromagnetic fields....
 (this is the origin of the usage of the term in gauge theories), and the gauge field A(x) with the four-vector potential
Vector potential

In vector calculus, a vector potential is a vector field whose Curl is a given vector field. This is analogous to a scalar potential, which is a scalar field whose negative gradient is a given vector field....
 of electromagnetic field
Electromagnetic field

The electromagnetic field is a physical field produced by electric charge. It affects the behavior of charged objects in the vicinity of the field....
 results in an interaction Lagrangian

where is the usual four vector electric current density. The gauge principle is therefore seen to naturally introduce the so-called minimal coupling of the electromagnetic field to the electron field.

Adding a Lagrangian for the gauge field in terms of the field strength tensor
Maxwell's equations

In electromagnetism, James Clerk Maxwell equations are a set of four partial differential equations that describe the properties of the electric field and magnetic field fields and relate them to their sources, charge density and current density....
 exactly as in electrodynamics, one obtains the Lagrangian which is used as the starting point in quantum electrodynamics
Quantum electrodynamics

Quantum electrodynamics is a relativity theory quantum field theory of electrodynamics. QED was developed by a number of physicists, beginning in the late 1920s....
.

See also: Dirac equation
Dirac equation

In physics, the Dirac equation is a theory of relativity quantum mechanics wave equation formulated by British physicist Paul Dirac in 1928 and provides a description of elementary particle spin-? particles, such as electrons, consistent with both the principles of quantum mechanics and the theory of special relativity....
, Maxwell's equations
Maxwell's equations

In electromagnetism, James Clerk Maxwell equations are a set of four partial differential equations that describe the properties of the electric field and magnetic field fields and relate them to their sources, charge density and current density....
, Quantum electrodynamics
Quantum electrodynamics

Quantum electrodynamics is a relativity theory quantum field theory of electrodynamics. QED was developed by a number of physicists, beginning in the late 1920s....


Mathematical formalism

Gauge theories are usually discussed in the language of differential geometry. Mathematically, a gauge is just a choice of a (local) section
Section (fiber bundle)

In the mathematical field of topology, a section of a fiber bundle, π: EB, over a topological space, B, is a continuous map, s : BE, such that π=x for all x in B....
 of some principal bundle
Principal bundle

In mathematics, a principal bundle is a mathematical object which formalizes some of the essential features of a Cartesian product X × G of a space X with a group G....
. A gauge transformation is just a transformation between two such sections.

Although gauge theory is dominated by the study of connections
Connection form

In mathematics, and specifically differential geometry, a connection form is a manner of organizing the data of a connection using the language of moving frames and differential forms....
 (primarily because it's mainly studied by high-energy physicists), the idea of a connection is not central to gauge theory in general. In fact, a result in general gauge theory shows that affine representation
Affine representation

An affine representation of a topological group group G on an affine space A is a continuity group homomorphism from G to the automorphism group of A, the affine group Aff....
s (i.e. affine modules
Module (mathematics)

In abstract algebra, the concept of a module over a ring is a generalization of the notion of vector space, where instead of requiring the scalar to lie in a field , the "scalars" may lie in an arbitrary ring....
) of the gauge transformations can be classified as sections of a jet bundle
Jet bundle

In differential geometry, the jet bundle is a certain construction which makes a new smooth_manifold fiber bundle out of a given smooth fiber bundle....
 satisfying certain properties. There are representations which transform covariantly pointwise (called by physicists gauge transformations of the first kind), representations which transform as a connection form
Connection form

In mathematics, and specifically differential geometry, a connection form is a manner of organizing the data of a connection using the language of moving frames and differential forms....
 (called by physicists gauge transformations of the second kind) (this is an affine representation) and other more general representations, such as the B field in BF theory. And of course, we can consider more general nonlinear representations (realizations), but that is extremely complicated. But still, nonlinear sigma models transform nonlinearly, so there are applications.

If we have a principal bundle
Principal bundle

In mathematics, a principal bundle is a mathematical object which formalizes some of the essential features of a Cartesian product X × G of a space X with a group G....
 P whose base space is space
Space

Space is the boundless, three-dimensional extent in which Physical body and events occur and have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physics usually consider it, with time, to be part of the boundless four-dimensional continuum known as spacetime....
 or spacetime
Spacetime

In physics, spacetime is any mathematical model that combines space and Time in physics into a single continuum . Spacetime is usually interpreted with space being Three-dimensional space and time playing the role of a fourth dimension that is of a different sort than the spatial dimensions....
 and structure group is a Lie group
Lie group

In mathematics, a Lie group is a group which is also a differentiable manifold, with the property that the group operations are compatible with the Differential structure....
, then the sections of P form a principal homogeneous space
Principal homogeneous space

In mathematics, a principal homogeneous space, or torsor, for a group G is a homogeneous space X for G such that the stabilizer subgroup of any point is trivial....
 of the group of gauge transformations.

We can define a connection
Connection form

In mathematics, and specifically differential geometry, a connection form is a manner of organizing the data of a connection using the language of moving frames and differential forms....
 (gauge connection) on this principal bundle, yielding a covariant derivative
Covariant derivative

In mathematics, the covariant derivative is a way of specifying a derivative along tangent vectors of a manifold. Alternatively, the covariant derivative is a way of introducing and working with a connection on a manifold by means of a differential operator, to be contrasted with the approach given by a connection on the frame bundle &mdas...
 ? in each associated vector bundle. If we choose a local frame (a local basis of sections) then we can represent this covariant derivative by the connection form
Connection form

In mathematics, and specifically differential geometry, a connection form is a manner of organizing the data of a connection using the language of moving frames and differential forms....
 A, a Lie algebra
Lie algebra

In mathematics, a Lie algebra is an algebraic structure whose main use is in studying geometric objects such as Lie groups and differentiable manifolds....
-valued 1-form
Differential form

In the mathematics fields of differential geometry and tensor calculus, differential forms are an approach to multivariable calculus that is independent of coordinates....
 which is called the gauge potential in physics
Physics

Physics is the natural science which examines basic concepts such as energy, force, and spacetime and all that derives from these, such as mass, charge, matter and its Motion ....
 and which is evidently not an intrinsic but a frame-dependent quantity. From this connection form we can construct the curvature form
Curvature form

In differential geometry, the curvature form describes curvature of a connection form on a principal bundle. It can be considered as an alternative to or generalization of curvature tensor in Riemannian geometry....
 F, a Lie algebra
Lie algebra

In mathematics, a Lie algebra is an algebraic structure whose main use is in studying geometric objects such as Lie groups and differentiable manifolds....
-valued 2-form
Differential form

In the mathematics fields of differential geometry and tensor calculus, differential forms are an approach to multivariable calculus that is independent of coordinates....
 which is an intrinsic quantity, by

where d stands for the exterior derivative
Exterior derivative

In differential geometry, the exterior derivative extends the concept of the differential of a function, which is a form of degree zero, to differential forms of higher degree....
 and stands for the wedge product. ( is an element of the vector space spanned by the generators , and so the components of do not commute with one another. Hence the wedge product does not vanish.)

Infinitesimal gauge transformations form a Lie algebra
Lie algebra

In mathematics, a Lie algebra is an algebraic structure whose main use is in studying geometric objects such as Lie groups and differentiable manifolds....
, which is characterized by a smooth Lie algebra
Lie algebra

In mathematics, a Lie algebra is an algebraic structure whose main use is in studying geometric objects such as Lie groups and differentiable manifolds....
 valued scalar
Scalar (mathematics)

In linear algebra, real numbers are called scalars and relate to vectors in a vector space through the operation of scalar multiplication, in which a vector can be multiplied by a number to produce another vector....
, e. Under such an infinitesimal
Infinitesimal

Infinitesimals have been used to express the idea of objects so small that there is no way to see them or to measure them. For everyday life, an infinitesimal object is an object which is smaller than any possible measure....
 gauge transformation,

where is the Lie bracket
Lie algebra

In mathematics, a Lie algebra is an algebraic structure whose main use is in studying geometric objects such as Lie groups and differentiable manifolds....
.

One nice thing is that if , then where D is the covariant derivative

Also, , which means F transforms covariantly.

Not all gauge transformations can be generated by infinitesimal
Infinitesimal

Infinitesimals have been used to express the idea of objects so small that there is no way to see them or to measure them. For everyday life, an infinitesimal object is an object which is smaller than any possible measure....
 gauge transformations in general. An example is when the base manifold is a compact manifold
Manifold

In mathematics, more specifically topology, a manifold is a topological space in which every point has a neighborhood which "resembles" Euclidean space....
 without boundary
Boundary (topology)

In topology, the boundary of a subset S of a topological space X is the set of points which can be approached both from S and from the outside of S....
 such that the homotopy
Homotopy

In topology, two continuous function Function from one topological space to another are called homotopic if one can be "continuously deformed" into the other, such a deformation being called a homotopy between the two functions....
 class of mappings from that manifold
Manifold

In mathematics, more specifically topology, a manifold is a topological space in which every point has a neighborhood which "resembles" Euclidean space....
 to the Lie group is nontrivial. See instanton
Instanton

An instanton or pseudoparticle is a notion appearing in theoretical and mathematical physics. Mathematically, a Yang-Mills instanton is a self-dual or anti-self-dual connection in a principal bundle over a four-dimensional Riemannian manifold that plays the role of physical space-time in nonabelian gauge theory....
 for an example.

The Yang-Mills action is now given by

where * stands for the Hodge dual
Hodge dual

In mathematics, the Hodge star operator or Hodge dual is a significant linear map introduced in general by W. V. D. Hodge. It is defined on the exterior algebra of a finite-dimensional orientation inner product space....
 and the integral is defined as in differential geometry
Differential form

In the mathematics fields of differential geometry and tensor calculus, differential forms are an approach to multivariable calculus that is independent of coordinates....
.

A quantity which is gauge-invariant i.e. invariant
Invariant

Invariant and invariance may have several meanings, among which are:* Invariant , an expression whose value doesn't change during execution ...
 under gauge transformations is the Wilson loop
Wilson loop

In gauge theory, a Wilson loop is a gauge-invariant observable obtained from the holonomy of the gauge connection around a given loop. In the classical theory, the collection of all Wilson loops contains sufficient information to reconstruct the gauge connection, up to gauge transformation....
, which is defined over any closed path, ?, as follows:

where ? is the character
Group representation

In the mathematics field of representation theory, group representations describe abstract group in terms of linear transformations of vector spaces; in particular, they can be used to represent group elements as matrix so that the group operation can be represented by matrix multiplication....
 of a complex representation
Group representation

In the mathematics field of representation theory, group representations describe abstract group in terms of linear transformations of vector spaces; in particular, they can be used to represent group elements as matrix so that the group operation can be represented by matrix multiplication....
 ? and represents the path-ordered operator.

Quantization of gauge theories


Gauge theories may be quantized by specialization of methods which are applicable to any quantum field theory
Quantum field theory

Quantum field theory or QFT provides a theoretical framework for constructing quantum mechanics models of systems classically described by field or of Many-body problem....
. However, because of the subtleties imposed by the gauge constraints (see section on Mathematical formalism, above) there are many technical problems to be solved which do not arise in other field theories. At the same time, the richer structure of gauge theories allow simplification of some computations: for example Ward identities connect different renormalization
Renormalization

In quantum field theory, the statistical mechanics of fields, and the theory of self-similarity geometric structures, renormalization refers to a collection of techniques used to take a continuum limit....
 constants.

Methods and aims


The first gauge theory to be quantized was quantum electrodynamics
Quantum electrodynamics

Quantum electrodynamics is a relativity theory quantum field theory of electrodynamics. QED was developed by a number of physicists, beginning in the late 1920s....
 (QED). The first methods developed for this involved gauge fixing and then applying canonical quantization
Canonical quantization

In physics, canonical quantization is one of many procedures for quantization a classical theory. Historically, this was the earliest method to be used to build quantum mechanics....
. The Gupta-Bleuler method was also developed to handle this problem. Non-abelian gauge theories are now handled by a variety of means. Methods for quantization are covered in the article on quantization
Quantization (physics)

In physics, quantization is a procedure for constructing a quantum field theory starting from a classical field . This is a generalization of the procedure for building quantum mechanics from classical mechanics....
.

The main point to quantization is to be able to compute quantum amplitudes
Probability amplitude

In quantum mechanics, a probability amplitude is a complex number whose Absolute value squared represents a probability or probability density. For example, the values taken by a normalised wave function are amplitudes, since gives the probability density at position ....
 for various processes allowed by the theory. Technically, they reduce to the computations of certain correlation functions in the vacuum state
Vacuum state

In quantum field theory, the vacuum state is the quantum state with the lowest possible energy. Generally, it contains no physical particles. The term "zero-point field" is sometimes used as a synonym for the vacuum state of an individual quantized field....
. This involves a renormalization
Renormalization

In quantum field theory, the statistical mechanics of fields, and the theory of self-similarity geometric structures, renormalization refers to a collection of techniques used to take a continuum limit....
 of the theory.

When the running coupling of the theory is small enough, then all required quantities may be computed in perturbation theory
Perturbation theory

Perturbation theory comprises mathematical methods that are used to find an approximate solution to a problem which cannot be solved exactly, by starting from the exact solution of a related problem....
. Quantization schemes intended to simplify such computations (such as canonical quantization
Quantization (physics)

In physics, quantization is a procedure for constructing a quantum field theory starting from a classical field . This is a generalization of the procedure for building quantum mechanics from classical mechanics....
) may be called perturbative quantization schemes. At present some of these methods lead to the most precise experimental tests of gauge theories.

However, in most gauge theories, there are many interesting questions which are non-perturbative. Quantization schemes suited to these problems (such as lattice gauge theory
Lattice gauge theory

In physics, lattice gauge theory is the study of gauge theories on a spacetime that has been discretized onto a lattice . Although most lattice gauge theories are not exactly solvable, they are of tremendous appeal because they can be studied by simulation on a computer....
) may be called non-perturbative quantization schemes. Precise computations in such schemes often require supercomputing, and are therefore less well-developed currently than other schemes.

Anomalies


Some of the symmetries of the classical theory are then seen not to hold in the quantum theory — a phenomenon called an anomaly
Anomaly (physics)

In quantum physics an anomaly or quantum anomaly is the failure of a symmetry of a theory's classical action to be a symmetry of any regularization of the full quantum theory....
. Among the most well known are:
  • The scale anomaly, which gives rise to a running coupling constant. In QED this gives rise to the phenomenon of the Landau pole
    Landau pole

    In physics, Landau pole is the energy scale where a coupling constant of a quantum field theory becomes infinity. Such a possibility was pointed out by the physicist Lev Davidovich Landau....
    . In Quantum Chromodynamics
    Quantum chromodynamics

    Quantum chromodynamics is a theory of the strong interaction , a fundamental force describing the interactions of the quarks and gluons making up hadrons ....
     (QCD) this leads to asymptotic freedom
    Asymptotic freedom

    In physics, asymptotic freedom is the property of some gauge theory in which the interaction between the particles, such as quarks, becomes arbitrarily weak at ever shorter distances, i.e....
    .
  • The chiral anomaly
    Chiral anomaly

    A chiral anomaly is the anomaly nonconservation of a chirality current. In some theories of chiral fermion the quantization may lead to the breaking of this chiral symmetry....
     in either chiral or vector field theories with fermions. This has close connection with topology
    Topology

    Topology is a major area of mathematics that has emerged through the development of concepts from geometry and set theory, such as those of space, dimension, shape, transformation and others....
     through the notion of instanton
    Instanton

    An instanton or pseudoparticle is a notion appearing in theoretical and mathematical physics. Mathematically, a Yang-Mills instanton is a self-dual or anti-self-dual connection in a principal bundle over a four-dimensional Riemannian manifold that plays the role of physical space-time in nonabelian gauge theory....
    s. In QCD this anomaly causes the decay of a pion
    Pion

    In particle physics, a pion is any of three subatomic particles: , and . Pions are the lightest mesons and play an important role in explaining low-energy properties of the strong nuclear force....
     to two photon
    Photon

    In physics, the photon is an elementary particle, the quantum of the electromagnetic field and the basic unit of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation....
    s.
  • The gauge anomaly
    Gauge anomaly

    In theoretical physics, a gauge anomaly is an example of an anomaly : it is an effect of quantum mechanics?usually a one-loop diagram?that invalidates the gauge symmetry of a quantum field theory; i.e....
    , which must cancel in any consistent physical theory. In the electroweak theory this cancellation requires an equal number of quark
    Quark

    Quarks are a type of elementary particle and major constituents of matter. They are the only particles in the Standard Model to experience all four fundamental interaction, which are also known as fundamental interactions....
    s and lepton
    Lepton

    Leptons are a family of elementary particles, alongside quarks and gauge bosons . Like quarks, leptons are fermions and are subject to the electromagnetic force, the gravitational force, and weak interaction....
    s.


Pure gauge

A pure gauge is the set of field configurations obtained by a gauge transform on the null field configuration. So it is a particular "gauge orbit" in the field configuration's space.

In the abelian case, where , the pure gauge is the set of field configurations for all f(x).

Bibliography


  • George Svetlichny, , an introduction to the mathematical aspects


  • C. Becchi, , an elementary introduction to quantum gauge fields.


  • David Gross, , notes from a talk


  • Paul H. Frampton
    Paul Frampton

    Paul Howard Frampton is a leading theoretical physicist.Since 1996 he is the Louis D. Rubin, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ...
    , Gauge Field Theories, Second Edition, Wiley (2000).


See also


External links