Infinitesimal gauge transformations induced by Lie algebroid connections, in the context of Yang-Mills-Higgs gauge theory

TL;DR

This paper generalizes infinitesimal gauge transformations in Yang-Mills-Higgs theories using Lie algebroid connections, ensuring algebra closure and broadening the scope of gauge theory formulations.

Contribution

It introduces a framework for gauge transformations via Lie algebroid connections that close as an algebra, extending classical gauge theory concepts.

Findings

Gauge transformations are formulated as derivations induced by Lie algebroid connections.

Closure of the algebra depends on the vanishing of the basic curvature tensor.

Supports the use of arbitrary connections on vector bundles in gauge theories.

Abstract

There is the notion of action Lie algebroids, containing information about Lie algebras and their actions, which is why it is natural to generalise gauge theories to a formulation using Lie algebroids; these allow structure functions in general. This is for example done in the formulation of curved Yang-Mills-Higgs gauge theory, formulated by Alexei Kotov and Thomas Strobl. We will discuss how to formulate infinitesimal gauge transformations using Lie algebroids in such a way that these close as algebra. For this we are going to generalise infinitesimal gauge transformations of Yang-Mills-Higgs gauge theories to derivations on vector bundle $V$-valued functionals. In the context of gauge theory, we will motivate that those vector bundles $V$ will be the pullback of another bundle $W$, and the gauge transformations as derivations will be induced by a Lie algebroid connection on $W$, using a more general notion of pullback connections. This also supports the usage of arbitrary types of connections on $W$ in the definition of the infinitesimal gauge transformation, not just canonical flat ones as in the classical formulation. As usual, these derivations are parametrised and their parameters have to be generalised to functionals, especially the parameters themselves can have a non-trivial gauge transformation. We then discuss under which conditions this algebra of derivations gives a closed algebra, also by providing a natural Lie bracket on the space of parameters, and we are going to see that closure is strongly related to the vanishing of a tensor known as the basic curvature.