Gauge Fixing Degeneracies and Confinement in Nonabelian Gauge Theories

Sep, 1977
35 pages
Published in:
  • Phys.Rev.D 17 (1978) 1086
Report number:
  • SLAC-REPRINT-1978-006,
  • PRINT-77-0750 (WASH.U.,ST.LOUIS)

Citations per year

19771983198919952000024681012
Abstract: (APS)
Following several suggestions of Gribov we have examined the problem of gauge-fixing degeneracies in non-Abelian gauge theories. First we modify the usual Faddeev-Popov prescription to take gauge-fixing degeneracies into account. We obtain a formal expression for the generating functional which is invariant under finite gauge transformations and which counts gauge-equivalent orbits only once. Next we examine the instantaneous Coulomb interaction in the canonical formalism with the Coulomb-gauge condition. We find that the spectrum of the Coulomb Green's function in an external monopole-like field configuration has an accumulation of negative-energy bound states at E=0. Using semiclassical methods we show that this accumulation phenomenon, which is closely linked with gauge-fixing degeneracies, modifies the usual Coulomb propagator from |k→|−2 to |k→|−4 for small |k→|. This confinement behavior depends only on the long-range behavior of the field configuration. We thereby demonstrate the conjectured confinement property of non-Abelian gauge theories in the Coulomb gauge.
  • GAUGE FIELD THEORY: NONABELIAN
  • SYMMETRY: SU(2)
  • COULOMB: GAUGE
  • POSTULATED PARTICLE: MAGNETIC MONOPOLE
  • QUARK: CONFINEMENT